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Now, time for some possible overkill.... Network upgrade...

phill

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Hey everyone :) Hopefully this thread won't be a bore or any sort of problem child but a bit of light and crazy into a loony's way of thinking :D (Apologies, I think it might be a little 'wordy' so apologies for the amount of text...

So... Here's the deal.
I'm very much looking into a home network upgrade. As some might look in on or follow my little project thread ('ere be the link!!) I've mentioned about the possibility of a 10Gb network in my home. I currently have a wide range shall we say, of devices that use my network which is no issue or problem whatsoever. It currently runs using a HP 24 port 1Gb switch and a ISP provided fibre SFP modem that I have as near as makes no difference, a 1Gb service from (950/200 if you wish to be picky....)

Currently I have a single server that stores all of my data (personal data, pictures, music, videos, programs, OS installs and all the rest that you can probably think of) which has been flawless since the day I've put it in. I'm upgraded the server so its sitting on a few more TB's of storage and is again, working flawlessly.
My only real problem with it is simple, network performance.

Now roughly 1Gb ethernet as we all know, is approximately 110MB/sec. So when trying to transfer a 4k film rip or something or backing up data etc. if I have a few hunderd GBs or if I'm moving TBs to and from, speeds are kind of important to me as I don't really like the idea of having something transferring for a day at a time (or what feels like it)
Now I've also noticed that because of this and with the new internet connection I have been very much enjoying, I've seen slow downs in the transfer speeds. Obviously if you have a 1Gb connection for your network and your downloading as well, the performance will drop as it can't handle everything coming down and transferring at once. So, I'm very much interested in removing that limitation.

I'm therefore looking to replace my current ISP modem simply because I don't have the functionality of what I've been used to with my older modem (port forwarding for example I can no longer do) and then I'd like to upgrade to a 10Gb switch for the home.
Now not every PC or device needs to have that 10Gb capability but I thought rather than running two switches, one switch would be plentiful and hopefully an easier option. Also in mind was the fact, if I bought an 8 port switch, I'd run out quickly and then when looking, I found it hard to find a 16 port switch but I could see a 24 port model, so this began to be my go to....

Now the worst thing for me, is I'm a tweaker, I do like to learn and mess about with things and I know this will lead to possibly breaking something and so on, so I would like to have that sort of choice, unlike my ISP router for example where I can't do a thing.

I've been looking over a few models over the last day or so, I've been looking into Netgear, TP Link, I've even remember using Avaya at work and a talk of Cisco is mentioned too. I've also been suggested to consider Ubiquiti kit as well. Having been looking around on their site, they aren't cheap but then if you are going to do something properly, sometimes price isn't the main consideration.
I've been looking at these two items from their site currently...

Dream Machine
24 port 10Gb Switch

I figure they might be a good start. I'm also considering or at least thinking about having a possibility of a faster internet connection, so say for example a 2.5Gb connection, so the 1Gb ports on the router/modem might be a little pointless but having a chat with some friends, I think this might be a bit of a non starter and a non issue for now.
The connectivity for the replacement router is I think somewhat important because I have now a fibre modem, not a RJ45 or something similar as I've been used to. Could anyone suggest a good fibre router/modem that I can replace what I currently have at all please? With some searching, there doesn't seem to be that many around for home usage I feel. The other thing is, I'd like something to be rock solid and as reliable too. I will be checkng in with my ISP just to see if they recommend anything to replace it out with, should it be needed.

Apologies everyone, this is getting rather wordy and at 115am, probably not the best time to be typing away!! :D

So, the Ubiquiti kit I think might be out for the moment, just because price wise and the fact I'm off on sick pay income due to my broken leg, so my pay is a little lower than hoped sadly. For the moment, I'm considering a cheap ish switch so I can do some testing and see how things go and see if there's any issues with some 10Gb network cards.
I believe my Threadripper system has an on board 10Gb LAN connection, so I'm looking for another 10Gb card. I have seen some Asus models about the £100 mark new (a few cheaper models on Ebay but some are V1 and others are V2.. I've honestly no idea on the difference between the two.) This Asus network card is the one I'm referring to. I know my mate would be looking at buying it from me afterwards so I think I could get a good 80% back for the switch whenever I could afford to replace it out.
The switch I'm looking at currently is a TP Link 10Gb 8 port switch. Its about the cheapest I could find that actually had more than 2 10Gb ports. Here's one on Ebay but I think the price is a little too high for second hand, so I'd rather buy it brand new for the extra £40 just in case something goes wrong....

So for the moment and since my home is run with Cat 5e, I think the RJ45 might be the better route for now. If things change or if a better deal comes around, maybe the SFP way might be better.
My questions are basically after all that text, could anyone suggest a better setup for short term or long term plans for the home network upgrade? For the moment, the 8 port would be perfectly fine as I'd be able to test in my PC room upstairs on a few device and see if I need to go crazy and get the 24 port switch for the house or if the 8 port would do for now.

If anyone has made it this far, hats off to you and your amazing! Look forward to hearing back from anyone who can suggest something on what I'd be better off to do :)

Also when we have this bit sorted, then its about disk performance for making sure I can actually hit 10Gb speeds....... :) Sorry everyone! :)
 
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Let me ask, is your network all hardwired?
 

phill

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Let me ask, is your network all hardwired?
Most definitely :) I thought I had mentioned that in the first post, apologies! I'll edit and make sure :) Here's a link to my project thread with the network setup

I'm going to toy with the idea of trying to get something bought over this week or two, whilst I'm off I think it makes sense to give it a go. Might just try to grab a single PCIe card for now and the switch, will see if there's anything else out there and see if there's any suggestions from our great TPU :)

I'm no expert at all in networking, but I'm very much willing to learn :)
 
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Delay the project for a year.

More PCe4/5 ASIC will come out, at least I hope so, it will drive down the price so in SOHO environment should appear less expensive solutions, also more energy efficient.
 

phill

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Well the hardware I'm currently using only supports PCIe Gen 3, so its not such an importance really. I believe this first phase is more for testing than anything else. I'm not quite ready yet to sink nearly £2000 on a switch and router for the house but for a few hundred quid to test out if its going to work and do what I would like it too, I can stomach it :) I suppose I shouldn't be with the sick pay coming in soon, but I'm going to go nuts just sat here, so I've got to do something lol :)

I think an 8 port switch and a couple 10Gb cards for now should be more than enough to test this out. I'm curious to find out if the Asus card will work with the Synology box I have, as its not a proper Synology I like to live in hope :) Only one way to find out tho :)

Maybe by the time I do this properly, I will go for the SFP rather than RJ45 (although I'm not really sure many benifits over RJ45 but hopefully someone can poke me in the right direction and let me know :)) but as the devices that connect to my network are all over the house rather than in a server cab or in one room, I figure the RJ45 might be a good but cheap option for the moment. I suppose I could always add in another switch should I need to and it doesn't have to be 10Gb as I'm only looking for certain kit to have that capability :) The big servers, they might well get a 10Gb card at some point... Can probably save power with the extra performance I'd get from the transfer rates over leaving it on for days to copy data :laugh:
 
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Well the hardware I'm currently using only supports PCIe Gen 3, so its not such an importance really.

It is. They are expensive because of that. To achieve such bandwidth you have to have flagship ASIC's with many pcie lines and hang a bunch of secondary controllers. It looks like a DIY blade PC more than a specialized HW router AIO.

When Pcie4/5 will become mainstream, you could have same bandwidth using much less controllers and it will end up cheaper and use less current.

I understand the upgrade itch, but but soon...

@TheLostSwede should confirm that also, we had a talk about also.
 

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If you only need an 8-port switch, make have a look at the TP-Link TL-SX1008, unless you really want a managed switch.
It's the cheapest 10 Gbps 8-port switch to date, that's not fibre based at least.
There's also a cheaper 5-port version that's passively cooled.

The problem with a lot of 10 Gbps cards is that they are PCIe x4 cards, or even x8 if you pick up some second hand server cards.
This means they will have to share bandwidth with the graphics card in most consumer setups.
That said, I haven't seen any PCIe 4.0 x1 cards as yet, even though there are chips that can do this.
 

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There's 100GB switches for $800 these days. Just a thought.

Would allow you to go 10/25GB now, and not have to replace things in future for further upgrades.
 

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I should say that the Synology box is working from a Z97 motherboard, most of the other kit I use is AM4 Ryzen or newer Intel models but I am thinking to try and change up and make a media server or do something different for the rest of the data I have there.....

I did mention in the first post about the TP Link switch, glad someone else has mentioned it now :) I found it new for about £300, I haven't seen it any cheaper sadly but that will do :)

I couldn't see any 100Gb switches, I presume that they would have to be SFP models as does RJ45 connections/CAT cable support that fast a speed? I've not been looking at anything that spec at the moment, but its a good call :)
Any links or suggestions for the switches would be great :)

I'm guessing any of the newer Ryzen kit and such would have all the requirements for newer and faster network cards, I'd like to hope I'll get chance to do some testing soon enough :)
 

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cant wait to read this! just a quick note skimming through, make sure the SWITCHING BACKPLANE of the switch can handle the traffic if you are gonna push heavy loads. IE: an 8port 10GB switch should have a switching backplane of OVER 80gb/s ideally. (that was the full line rate can be used on all ports + management at one time) If you dont plan on pushing data that heavily though then no need to really worry, I always do though for planned expansion or needs.
 

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cant wait to read this! just a quick note skimming through, make sure the SWITCHING BACKPLANE of the switch can handle the traffic if you are gonna push heavy loads. IE: an 8port 10GB switch should have a switching backplane of OVER 80gb/s ideally. (that was the full line rate can be used on all ports + management at one time) If you dont plan on pushing data that heavily though then no need to really worry, I always do though for planned expansion or needs.
Well kind sir, from the couple links in my first post to a few switches, both of them are over what you'd expect, I believe them both to be double the data rate. The TP Link has a maximum of 160Gb and the 24 port I mention has a maximum of 580Gbps, so I'm thinking that's a win for both??

I feel its always best to over spec things simply because if things change and you don't plan well in the first place it'll soon go to poop which you don't want. Rather looking forward to getting a few things sorted out and this network is definitely high up on my list.

Next thing to sort out is what to do with the Synology server and whether or not I should actually go to something else as well.... But, lets see what the 10Gb network project brings us first :)

Thanks for all the input everyone, I'm a little while off ordering anything yet so if anyone has anything they'd like to add, please do!! :)

@dgianstefani 100Gb network would be amazing but 4 ports ain't gonna cut it lol :( If there's 8 minimum or 16, then things could go along that route... Only thing is would be were would I have to put the switch.... Thanks for the link tho :) 100Gb network sounds amazing!! :D
 

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There's 100GB switches for $800 these days. Just a thought.

Would allow you to go 10/25GB now, and not have to replace things in future for further upgrades.
Do they come with free ANC headphones in the box?

cant wait to read this! just a quick note skimming through, make sure the SWITCHING BACKPLANE of the switch can handle the traffic if you are gonna push heavy loads. IE: an 8port 10GB switch should have a switching backplane of OVER 80gb/s ideally. (that was the full line rate can be used on all ports + management at one time) If you dont plan on pushing data that heavily though then no need to really worry, I always do though for planned expansion or needs.
You're aware Ethernet is full duplex right? As such, the switching backplane would need a switching capacity of at least 160 Gbps on an 8-port 10 Gbps switch.

@phill maybe you want to check out QNAP's "low cost" 25 Gbps switch. They have matching cards as well.
 

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Well that's given me something to think about......

QNAP Switch
QNAP Switch on Amazon
QNAP 25Gb card
QNAP 25Gb card cost
QNAP 1.5m SFP Cable
QNAP 3.0m SFP Cable

I think that might be a bit of a pricey option, but might be worth it when I have another switch for the main part of the house, maybe I could put 10Gb back plane in the house and then have 25Gb or something in the PC room for just because... Seems like a good level of overkill :)

So the plan though for the weekend.....

TP 8 port 10Gb switch
Asus 10Gb RJ45 PCIe Card

So unless anyone has any better ideas or options for me, please let me know before I do something stupid :D :D Or really stupid.... But well..... :)
 

phill

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Memory Viper Steel 4 x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz not sure on the timings... Probably still at 2667!! :(
Video Card(s) Asus Strix 3090 with front and rear active full cover water blocks
Storage I'm bound to forget something here - 250GB OS, 2 x 1TB NVME, 2 x 1TB SSD, 4TB SSD, 2 x 8TB HD etc...
Display(s) 3 x Dell 27" S2721DGFA @ 7680 x 1440P @ 144Hz or 165Hz - working on it!!
Case The big Thermaltake that looks like a Case Mods
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Power Supply EVGA 1600W T2
Mouse Corsair thingy
Keyboard Razer something or other....
VR HMD No headset yet
Software Windows 11 OS... Not a fan!!
Benchmark Scores I've actually never benched it!! Too busy with WCG and FAH and not gaming! :( :( Not OC'd it!! :(
Well after a disappointing delivery from Ebuyer as there were delays with shipping, I've finally got the 10Gb Home Network Starter Kit through.... :D :laugh:

20220520_150041.jpg 20220520_150243.jpg 20220520_150303.jpg 20220520_150445.jpg 20220520_163250.jpg

Installation? Well I eventually got it working lol :) Needed the drivers installing for the Asus card and on my Threadripper system which I thought might have been installed but no biggie on either of them. As I've not allowed the testing to be connected to the outside world, so very much LAN specific,

So I've been testing with a single SATA SSD, RAID 0 SATA SSDs, NVME drives as well and one thing I've noticed is that when 10Gb is in full swing, wow it is amazing :) :cool: Now for the part I'm going to need some help with I think...

A bit of backwards thinking - 1Gb ethernet I don't have any issues when transferring large MP4's for example, say 100GB of those, the network would be pegged at 110MB/sec+ until the transfer completed.

Now for this and I'm unsure if there's some extra configuration I need to do via the switch (which I'm unsure is possible as its unmanaged) or if its something to do with the setup in Windows for how it transfers, but I get dips in the transfer. So it would run at full speed I think for 10 seconds say, then stop for 20, then carry on again and stop and so on. I've no idea why that is.
I've tested with the SSDs, they have been ok, the speeds do rather well, about 4Gb/sec (about 450MB/sec transfer), then I tried the RAID 0 SATA SSDs that near doubled and was nearly at a 1GB/sec but was still having those dips. NVME was the same but when it was reading from an NVME and copying back to a NVME, speeds where great. I've been seeing speeds over the network according to Windows just under 1.1GB/sec at its best but they aren't sustained transfers, the speeds drop.

I'm curious if that's due to the drives, RAM, drive buffer sizes....? I think there's quite a list but at 1am, my brain not working so great lol

I've attached a few screen grabs of the various transfers. I simply set them up as a static IP, with no gateway IP since nothing was connected and let Windows attempt to do the rest which seemed to cause issues with the network setups. Examples like, I couldn't see the machines in under My Network or even without requiring a password, they wouldn't allow connection to the shared folder.

SATA SSD RAID 0

10G 5950X to TR SATA SSD 3.PNG 10G 5950X to TR SATA SSD 6.PNG

NVME Tests -

10G 5950X to TR NVME 1.PNG10G 5950X to TR NVME 2.PNG10G 5950X to TR NVME 4.PNG

And my famous; Notworks.....

NOTWORK.PNG

And loading up Networks on my Threadripper system, it wouldn't even show up that PC and the Ryzen 5950X system in the Network section but yet I could UNC to the device. I'd installed SMB 1.0 to each machine, restarted and just weirdness....
Also whilst I remember, here's the drive speed tests from the NVME drive and SATA Raid devices I used.

1653178525502.png


Any advise for this would be amazing, as I'd love to understand why its not running as well as I'd hoped for sustained transfers... If anyone can show me or advise anything else I need to do or that I'm missing or whatever else you could think of, please do let me know :)

Thanks for the help in advance!! :)
 
Last edited:

phill

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System Name Not so complete or overkill - There are others!! Just no room to put! :D
Processor Ryzen Threadripper 3970X
Motherboard Asus Zenith 2 Extreme Alpha
Cooling Lots!! Dual GTX 560 rads with D5 pumps for each rad. One rad for each component
Memory Viper Steel 4 x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz not sure on the timings... Probably still at 2667!! :(
Video Card(s) Asus Strix 3090 with front and rear active full cover water blocks
Storage I'm bound to forget something here - 250GB OS, 2 x 1TB NVME, 2 x 1TB SSD, 4TB SSD, 2 x 8TB HD etc...
Display(s) 3 x Dell 27" S2721DGFA @ 7680 x 1440P @ 144Hz or 165Hz - working on it!!
Case The big Thermaltake that looks like a Case Mods
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply EVGA 1600W T2
Mouse Corsair thingy
Keyboard Razer something or other....
VR HMD No headset yet
Software Windows 11 OS... Not a fan!!
Benchmark Scores I've actually never benched it!! Too busy with WCG and FAH and not gaming! :( :( Not OC'd it!! :(
Well with a fair bit of Googling and hopefully searching for the right stuff, I'm going to test a few things I've found online so I can find out if there's anything improvement with the solutions I've found. I've also found that there's set network cards that my Synology box can take (that seems to be supported by the DSM version as well) so it might be that I might be stuck with 1Gb for that one but there's a dual port 10Gb card that I think might work....

Dual 10Gb NIC Card
Synology compatible network cards

Then a few on problems with 10Gb+ networking....

100Gb network....
Newer SMB updates
How to set MTU in Linux/Windows

I'm hoping that something in there might be able to help me with the performance issues I'm having.. I'd like to think so..... :) Will try and report back on my findings and whether or not the card works in my Synology box too :)
 

TheLostSwede

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System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
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Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
First of all, go to Marvell's website and download the latest firmware for your network cards.
Those Aquantia based cards you got most likely have a very old firmware and there are a lot of fixes that the new firmwares have.

I suggest you download Helios LAN Test to test the performance, as it's made for testing network performance, unlike CrystalDiskMark.

You can also install iPerf3 and test the network throughput, as it doesn't rely on storage devices.
This is using two streams.
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.5 GBytes 9.04 Gbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.5 GBytes 9.04 Gbits/sec receiver
 

phill

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Staff member
Joined
Jun 8, 2011
Messages
15,861 (3.39/day)
Location
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System Name Not so complete or overkill - There are others!! Just no room to put! :D
Processor Ryzen Threadripper 3970X
Motherboard Asus Zenith 2 Extreme Alpha
Cooling Lots!! Dual GTX 560 rads with D5 pumps for each rad. One rad for each component
Memory Viper Steel 4 x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz not sure on the timings... Probably still at 2667!! :(
Video Card(s) Asus Strix 3090 with front and rear active full cover water blocks
Storage I'm bound to forget something here - 250GB OS, 2 x 1TB NVME, 2 x 1TB SSD, 4TB SSD, 2 x 8TB HD etc...
Display(s) 3 x Dell 27" S2721DGFA @ 7680 x 1440P @ 144Hz or 165Hz - working on it!!
Case The big Thermaltake that looks like a Case Mods
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply EVGA 1600W T2
Mouse Corsair thingy
Keyboard Razer something or other....
VR HMD No headset yet
Software Windows 11 OS... Not a fan!!
Benchmark Scores I've actually never benched it!! Too busy with WCG and FAH and not gaming! :( :( Not OC'd it!! :(
Do you think that the Threadripper system LAN would need the same or would that be just updated with drivers?

The Asus card I did see with the driver that it has a firmware update file, so tomorrow I'll give that a go :)

However I've been trying iPerf3 that you mentioned, that seems the results do vary a bit, I've had results from 6Gb/sec to about 8.5Gb/sec but nothing constant. I've grabbed some screen grabs with the tests I've been trying this afternoon -

1653414454006.png


Been doing a few tests with jumbo frames, different receive buffers and such like but it seems to not really make much of a difference.
I've even tried something called Teracopy as well, which wasn't too bad as it was at least constant, but it was not even getting anywhere near to the speed it could be.

1653415280131.png


1653415350534.png


I'll udate again tomorrow if I can update the firmware on the ethernet card :) Wonder what I can do for the on boar Threadripper one....
 
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Hey everyone :) Hopefully this thread won't be a bore or any sort of problem child but a bit of light and crazy into a loony's way of thinking :D (Apologies, I think it might be a little 'wordy' so apologies for the amount of text...

So... Here's the deal.
I'm very much looking into a home network upgrade. As some might look in on or follow my little project thread ('ere be the link!!) I've mentioned about the possibility of a 10Gb network in my home. I currently have a wide range shall we say, of devices that use my network which is no issue or problem whatsoever. It currently runs using a HP 24 port 1Gb switch and a ISP provided fibre SFP modem that I have as near as makes no difference, a 1Gb service from (950/200 if you wish to be picky....)

Currently I have a single server that stores all of my data (personal data, pictures, music, videos, programs, OS installs and all the rest that you can probably think of) which has been flawless since the day I've put it in. I'm upgraded the server so its sitting on a few more TB's of storage and is again, working flawlessly.
My only real problem with it is simple, network performance.

Now roughly 1Gb ethernet as we all know, is approximately 110MB/sec. So when trying to transfer a 4k film rip or something or backing up data etc. if I have a few hunderd GBs or if I'm moving TBs to and from, speeds are kind of important to me as I don't really like the idea of having something transferring for a day at a time (or what feels like it)
Now I've also noticed that because of this and with the new internet connection I have been very much enjoying, I've seen slow downs in the transfer speeds. Obviously if you have a 1Gb connection for your network and your downloading as well, the performance will drop as it can't handle everything coming down and transferring at once. So, I'm very much interested in removing that limitation.

I'm therefore looking to replace my current ISP modem simply because I don't have the functionality of what I've been used to with my older modem (port forwarding for example I can no longer do) and then I'd like to upgrade to a 10Gb switch for the home.
Now not every PC or device needs to have that 10Gb capability but I thought rather than running two switches, one switch would be plentiful and hopefully an easier option. Also in mind was the fact, if I bought an 8 port switch, I'd run out quickly and then when looking, I found it hard to find a 16 port switch but I could see a 24 port model, so this began to be my go to....

Now the worst thing for me, is I'm a tweaker, I do like to learn and mess about with things and I know this will lead to possibly breaking something and so on, so I would like to have that sort of choice, unlike my ISP router for example where I can't do a thing.

I've been looking over a few models over the last day or so, I've been looking into Netgear, TP Link, I've even remember using Avaya at work and a talk of Cisco is mentioned too. I've also been suggested to consider Ubiquiti kit as well. Having been looking around on their site, they aren't cheap but then if you are going to do something properly, sometimes price isn't the main consideration.
I've been looking at these two items from their site currently...

Dream Machine
24 port 10Gb Switch

I figure they might be a good start. I'm also considering or at least thinking about having a possibility of a faster internet connection, so say for example a 2.5Gb connection, so the 1Gb ports on the router/modem might be a little pointless but having a chat with some friends, I think this might be a bit of a non starter and a non issue for now.
The connectivity for the replacement router is I think somewhat important because I have now a fibre modem, not a RJ45 or something similar as I've been used to. Could anyone suggest a good fibre router/modem that I can replace what I currently have at all please? With some searching, there doesn't seem to be that many around for home usage I feel. The other thing is, I'd like something to be rock solid and as reliable too. I will be checkng in with my ISP just to see if they recommend anything to replace it out with, should it be needed.

Apologies everyone, this is getting rather wordy and at 115am, probably not the best time to be typing away!! :D

So, the Ubiquiti kit I think might be out for the moment, just because price wise and the fact I'm off on sick pay income due to my broken leg, so my pay is a little lower than hoped sadly. For the moment, I'm considering a cheap ish switch so I can do some testing and see how things go and see if there's any issues with some 10Gb network cards.
I believe my Threadripper system has an on board 10Gb LAN connection, so I'm looking for another 10Gb card. I have seen some Asus models about the £100 mark new (a few cheaper models on Ebay but some are V1 and others are V2.. I've honestly no idea on the difference between the two.) This Asus network card is the one I'm referring to. I know my mate would be looking at buying it from me afterwards so I think I could get a good 80% back for the switch whenever I could afford to replace it out.
The switch I'm looking at currently is a TP Link 10Gb 8 port switch. Its about the cheapest I could find that actually had more than 2 10Gb ports. Here's one on Ebay but I think the price is a little too high for second hand, so I'd rather buy it brand new for the extra £40 just in case something goes wrong....

So for the moment and since my home is run with Cat 5e, I think the RJ45 might be the better route for now. If things change or if a better deal comes around, maybe the SFP way might be better.
My questions are basically after all that text, could anyone suggest a better setup for short term or long term plans for the home network upgrade? For the moment, the 8 port would be perfectly fine as I'd be able to test in my PC room upstairs on a few device and see if I need to go crazy and get the 24 port switch for the house or if the 8 port would do for now.

If anyone has made it this far, hats off to you and your amazing! Look forward to hearing back from anyone who can suggest something on what I'd be better off to do :)

Also when we have this bit sorted, then its about disk performance for making sure I can actually hit 10Gb speeds....... :) Sorry everyone! :)
I also recently began looking at purchasing the hardware for a small home network(my 3 PCs running side by side). I was taken aback a little by the complexity of available hardware and their compatibility and incompatability with eachother, both in the actual and the arbitrary sense. I was also a bit disgusted by Amazon's obvious de-emphasis applied on the real manufacturer's SKUs. Search for SFP+ or similar related terms on Amazon and you will see nothing but knockoffs for pages and pages.
I still haven't purchased anything yet, as my immediate need for it has already passed in the form of grueling torture.. but I have at least decided that I will be purchasing adapters from one of the real brands, which only fall into a sane price range when they are used and/or a decade old (yea, they had 10Gbit ethernet in 2009 or earlier). The most abundant such cards available seem to be PCIe Gen2, but if PCIe Gen2 was sufficiently providing 10Gbit connectivity, then it will still do so in a modern system.
To avoid the need to fight with search terms and filters on Amazon you can add the desired brands to the search URL like this:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=sfp++ada...oadcom|Cisco|Dell|HP|Intel|Mellanox|Qnap|SIIG

One thing I can't fix with URL manipulation is the fact that the technologies providing and provided by the hardware we wish to acquire, are the tech giants' Precious. Meaning that on top of any actual difficulties in determining what to purchase and from whom to purchase it, we get a big dose of the increasingly familiar experience of blatant and shameless proprietary licensing, restrictions, price-gating, exclusivity, etc. The only remedy to this is experience. Thankfully we can borrow such experience from experts who have or still do work in the related industries. Just don't ask them while they are *at* work.. or else they may feed you the same in fear of bossman.
 

phill

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Messages
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System Name Not so complete or overkill - There are others!! Just no room to put! :D
Processor Ryzen Threadripper 3970X
Motherboard Asus Zenith 2 Extreme Alpha
Cooling Lots!! Dual GTX 560 rads with D5 pumps for each rad. One rad for each component
Memory Viper Steel 4 x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz not sure on the timings... Probably still at 2667!! :(
Video Card(s) Asus Strix 3090 with front and rear active full cover water blocks
Storage I'm bound to forget something here - 250GB OS, 2 x 1TB NVME, 2 x 1TB SSD, 4TB SSD, 2 x 8TB HD etc...
Display(s) 3 x Dell 27" S2721DGFA @ 7680 x 1440P @ 144Hz or 165Hz - working on it!!
Case The big Thermaltake that looks like a Case Mods
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply EVGA 1600W T2
Mouse Corsair thingy
Keyboard Razer something or other....
VR HMD No headset yet
Software Windows 11 OS... Not a fan!!
Benchmark Scores I've actually never benched it!! Too busy with WCG and FAH and not gaming! :( :( Not OC'd it!! :(
First of all, go to Marvell's website and download the latest firmware for your network cards.
Those Aquantia based cards you got most likely have a very old firmware and there are a lot of fixes that the new firmwares have.

I suggest you download Helios LAN Test to test the performance, as it's made for testing network performance, unlike CrystalDiskMark.

You can also install iPerf3 and test the network throughput, as it doesn't rely on storage devices.
This is using two streams.
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.5 GBytes 9.04 Gbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.5 GBytes 9.04 Gbits/sec receiver
I'm not sure that the firmware update is going to work @TheLostSwede ....

Asus network adaptor product link

1653474404974.png

So I'm not really sure what the next steps are.... Will have a hunt around a bit I think :)
 

TheLostSwede

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Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/5za05v
Did I say Asus? I thought I said Marvell.
 

phill

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Messages
15,861 (3.39/day)
Location
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System Name Not so complete or overkill - There are others!! Just no room to put! :D
Processor Ryzen Threadripper 3970X
Motherboard Asus Zenith 2 Extreme Alpha
Cooling Lots!! Dual GTX 560 rads with D5 pumps for each rad. One rad for each component
Memory Viper Steel 4 x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz not sure on the timings... Probably still at 2667!! :(
Video Card(s) Asus Strix 3090 with front and rear active full cover water blocks
Storage I'm bound to forget something here - 250GB OS, 2 x 1TB NVME, 2 x 1TB SSD, 4TB SSD, 2 x 8TB HD etc...
Display(s) 3 x Dell 27" S2721DGFA @ 7680 x 1440P @ 144Hz or 165Hz - working on it!!
Case The big Thermaltake that looks like a Case Mods
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply EVGA 1600W T2
Mouse Corsair thingy
Keyboard Razer something or other....
VR HMD No headset yet
Software Windows 11 OS... Not a fan!!
Benchmark Scores I've actually never benched it!! Too busy with WCG and FAH and not gaming! :( :( Not OC'd it!! :(
I tried both Asus's site and Marvell. According to the firmware updater, the card I have isn't supported for whatever reason. Not sure the reasoning at all. I've grabbed a few more screen shots today with some more testing, with the newer drivers it seems slightly less performance, which is a shame but what I can't work out at all is that, if I'm transferring from the Threadripper system and copying over to the 5950X system, it works a lot smoother, doesn't peak as high (5950X to Threadripper it peaks about 1.16GB/sec, whereas from the Threadripper to the 5950X, it peaks about the 970MB/sec but doesn't dip or drop in speed as often and I've honestly no idea why that is doing it...

I've even tried today to set a higher MTU setting on the Asus card, it just will not do it, via CMD or Powershell with admin rights. I'm a little confused to say the least..... :( I've grabbed some screen grabs so hopefully they will show you what I'm doing wrong....

Asus network card firmware update 1.PNG Asus network card firmware update 3.PNG Asus new drivers test 1.PNG Asus new drivers test 2.PNG Asus new drivers test 3.PNG Asus new drivers test 4.PNG Asus new drivers test 5.PNG Asus new drivers test 7 5950 to TR.PNG Asus new drivers test 9 TR to 5950.PNG Asus new drivers test 11 TR to 5950.PNG Asus new drivers test 12.PNG Asus new drivers test 17.PNG Asus new drivers test 18.PNG Asus new drivers test 19.PNG Asus new drivers test 20.png

The links I used for the drivers and Marvell drivers too :)

Marvell Download Link

Asus support page for the XC100-C

Apologies for all the screen grabs but I hope this is a much easier option to show what I'm doing than trying to describe it :) Apologies also about the res of the full size images, mates 4k monitor is a godsend when trying to fit all of this on and in one shot :) I found the iperf3 test to be all over the place when it comes to the results, its not constant at all. The last few tests I did before shutting down the machines, I was hitting about 3Gb speeds, but before hand I was hitting just over 8.6Gb/sec which is a fair speed difference. If I could find a way to get it running more constantly I'd be very happy.
I've even thought about testing it with Cat 6A cables as I'm only using Cat 5E but the patch leads are rather short, so I didn't think they'd make a massive difference. I was also going to switch out my NVME drive in the Threadripper PC to see if that helped with the performance.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received... :)
 

phill

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Messages
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Location
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System Name Not so complete or overkill - There are others!! Just no room to put! :D
Processor Ryzen Threadripper 3970X
Motherboard Asus Zenith 2 Extreme Alpha
Cooling Lots!! Dual GTX 560 rads with D5 pumps for each rad. One rad for each component
Memory Viper Steel 4 x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz not sure on the timings... Probably still at 2667!! :(
Video Card(s) Asus Strix 3090 with front and rear active full cover water blocks
Storage I'm bound to forget something here - 250GB OS, 2 x 1TB NVME, 2 x 1TB SSD, 4TB SSD, 2 x 8TB HD etc...
Display(s) 3 x Dell 27" S2721DGFA @ 7680 x 1440P @ 144Hz or 165Hz - working on it!!
Case The big Thermaltake that looks like a Case Mods
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply EVGA 1600W T2
Mouse Corsair thingy
Keyboard Razer something or other....
VR HMD No headset yet
Software Windows 11 OS... Not a fan!!
Benchmark Scores I've actually never benched it!! Too busy with WCG and FAH and not gaming! :( :( Not OC'd it!! :(
Well thanks to my last 10Gb network card purchase, I've been able to make sure it works elsewhere too...


20220529_102113.jpg 20220529_102520.jpg 20220529_102523.jpg 20220529_102807.jpg

And well Mr Windows Server seems to like it too....

Dell R730s now with 10Gb Networking!!.PNG


Well glad that works, now for when I can stand up a little, time for a network re-jig :)

Oh and I manged a quick test in my Synology box as well....

28-05-22 Synology Upgrade engaged!! 10Gb Networking 1-1.png 28-05-22 Synology Upgrade engaged!! 10Gb Networking 5-1.png 28-05-22 Synology Upgrade engaged!! 10Gb Networking 9-1.png

For a single drive I'm rather impressed with the solid performance so I'm definitely not complaining here either. I think it needs a re-jig when it comes to the drive setup because of the Raid 1's that I've got setup currently, Not sure what is best when it comes to spinning drives for a raid setup, as I'd look towards more so write and read performance but I think that Raid 10 is possibly a bit of a waste but would really welcome some other input :)

So on with a few more networking issues, but separate post for that :D
 
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