My minimum to replace my 1Gb switch is a fanless 2.5gb or faster with at least vlan support. I don't need all of that flashy enterprise stuff. Where are the switches?!
There's the Asus switch that has 2x 10Gbase-T and 8x 1000base-T (IIRC), but it apparently has heat issues. Imagine that, a mfr has gone for form before function. /s
Not to start with. If you have two PCs that exchange more data with each other than the rest, you can simply buy a pair of cards and setup a point-to-point link.
A switch can be added later, as you buy more cards.
I have this same Chipset in ASUS XG-C100C and the driver support from Aquantia is absolutely pathetic. It does not even support WOL (Wake on LAN) feature. I went back to onboard Intel I219-V gigabit as I found it to be more stable and with WOL support.
Avoid these first-gen Aquantia 10gbe products. The driver listed on ASUS website is 7-8 months old with no update in sight.
FYI, the deal on Arrow is only for Friday and new customers get 20% off and they have a special for 10% off (THANKYOU code) also and get free shipping over $20. So that is the best place so far to get those NICs; take advantage. The other two were still cheaper than without the discount but had stuff like $10 handling fee and then an insane shipping fee but the price changes were already showing earlier (often Black Friday deals are from Wednesday to Sunday). .
I had to email Aquantia directly because Arrow customer support had no idea what the hell I was talking about regarding a Black Friday promo but Aquantia confirmed it.
Good luck actually forwarding those packets at 10Gb rates. Most network stacks and CPUs couldn't handle it. 4 10Gb ports is going to need a minimum of about 19GiB/s(8.3GiB/s in and the same out) of memory bandwidth, and probably closer to 40GiB/s for practical reasons. That means quad channel DDR4.
There are some optimizations in the pipeline for many OSes in order to handle 40Gb/100Gb NICs.
Netflix has recently been able to almost reach 100Gb/s, not full duplex, with 8 channel dual socket servers, with all kinds of custom code and 24+ cpu cores. A 10Gb switch trivially handles several hundreds of Gb/s for much less power than a single CPU.
Well lucky me then I suppose since I'm waiting on pulling the trigger on a dual socket EPYC two node build. I want it all software defined. So no dedicated router or switch.
You don't need RAID-0 for that, just one semi-recent mechanical drive will do (with sequential access only, of course...). Albeit some of the slower ones might not be all that faster than what gb ethernet can do even with sequential access.
It may be rather easy to saturate a 1Gb port. But with what? Assuming the user wish to take a backup of his or her entire 10 TB NAS. Nothing done daily if I say so. It still would only take roughly one day. Assuming something a bit more realistic, such as copying a 50 GB bluray image or game install. It would take ten minutes. The common 6-10 GB bluray rip would take a minute to copy. And two hours to watch.
I'm not saying 10Gb is pointless. But for 99 percent of even enthusiasts 1Gb seem good enough.
Always some doofus telling everyone that they don't "need" something. I suppose HD is good enough and we don't need 4K....but we are getting 4K anyways. Technology should always progress and 1Gigabit is old and tired now. If they can make 10 Gigabit standard over the next ten years then GREAT. My new motherboard or Laptop better come with the 10G Lan.
PS: Hard drive speed is growing by leaps and bounds!!!!!!
I hope people realize that upgrading to this speed is limited to most hardd rives anyways. Much like the transition to 1Gb back in the day from 100Mb. I forget link, but a small town made its own Fiber network a while back, and the problem they encountered was that they had to install bunch of hardrives to "cache" data before hand because of bandwidth limits on devices.
If you're looking for an 8 port switch that natively handles 10G, 5G, 2.5G, 1G, and 100M, and don't mind spending $500, there's the Buffalo BS-XP2008. I just got one, recently, and purchased a couple of AQN-107 cards, along with having a mobo that came with an AQ-108 onboard. Unfortunately, I didn't know about this sale (and don't think Arrow has any price drop guarantee) or I would have waited. Anyway, I can verify that the above mentioned switch actually is compatible with the AQ cards. I connected the cards and switch as a completely separate subnet -- left the 1G existing network (with router connection to Internet) in place, and set up CIFS fileshares. With Windows 8.1 and newer, have seen in excess of 1GB/sec. Windows 7 is somewhat slower, between 400 and 700 MB/sec, depending on whether the files were being "pushed" vs "pulled". In fact, with Windows 7, there wasn't much difference between the AQ107 (10G) and the 108 (5G).
Sorry, typo - should be Buffalo BS-MP2008 as being fully compatible - I think the XP only does 1G / 10G (and not 2.5 G or 5G). Ff you don't need 2.5G or 5G, the XP2008 is a few bucks cheaper.
If anyone bought some of these, and wants a cheap(ish) switch that has some ports, I've just ordered a Netgear MS510TX. $350 or so. 1× 10Gbit (copper or SFP). 2× 5Gbit, 2×2.5Gbit, 4×1Gbit. I ordered only 5Gbit Aquantia cards, because I can use good ol' Cat5e at 5Gbit. 10Gbit is massive overkill for the home right now, and the switches are very expensive + use a decent amount of power. I figure the above switch + 5Gbit cards is a good compromise. A boost to the machines that could use it.
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Threska - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
That's nice for end-points. Now all one needs is a matching switch.bcronce - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
My minimum to replace my 1Gb switch is a fanless 2.5gb or faster with at least vlan support. I don't need all of that flashy enterprise stuff. Where are the switches?!Sgerevini - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
Mikrotik sells a 16 port 10gb per 399. https://mikrotik.com/product/crs317_1g_16s_rm. I think its a budget one.DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
FYI that switch won't work with these cards. They're both 10gb, but use different connectors.ddriver - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
It will work with the proper adapters, although that will increase the price significantly. At least like 20$ a pop.The best bet is a second hand enterprise switch, they are quite affordable, but are loud AF.
DigitalFreak - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Try $300 a pop. https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-SFP-10G-T-S-Compatib...erwos - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
That's some random seller. They really are $20 a pop at normal prices.DigitalFreak - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Show me a SFP+ 10G-BaseT GBIC for $20. I'm genuinely interested.bak0n - Saturday, November 25, 2017 - link
https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-SFP-10G-T-S-Compatib...0ldman79 - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
That's crazy.I didn't know there were any cheaper than the Mikrotik SFP+. I was looking a few months back, most were $300, then Mikrotik SFP+ was $59.
beepbeepimmajeep - Saturday, December 23, 2017 - link
That isn't BASE-T (Copper), It's BASE-SX, which is for fiber. Please learn a little more about 10Gb gear before you comment.bananaforscale - Thursday, November 30, 2017 - link
There's the Asus switch that has 2x 10Gbase-T and 8x 1000base-T (IIRC), but it apparently has heat issues. Imagine that, a mfr has gone for form before function. /sbcronce - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
Sweet! $30 for 1Gb-SFP or $65 for an N-baset RJ45 with 100/1g/2.5g/5g/10g support.mode_13h - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
Not to start with. If you have two PCs that exchange more data with each other than the rest, you can simply buy a pair of cards and setup a point-to-point link.A switch can be added later, as you buy more cards.
d5aqoep - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
I have this same Chipset in ASUS XG-C100C and the driver support from Aquantia is absolutely pathetic. It does not even support WOL (Wake on LAN) feature.I went back to onboard Intel I219-V gigabit as I found it to be more stable and with WOL support.
Avoid these first-gen Aquantia 10gbe products. The driver listed on ASUS website is 7-8 months old with no update in sight.
extide - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Get the drivers right from Aquantia? https://www.aquantia.com/driver-download/d5aqoep - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Yup even with the new drivers.Gray05 - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
https://www.aquantia.com/products/client-connectiv...Aquantia's website says it supports MacOS. However, the OEM cards based on this controller don't say that. Can anybody confirm this?
d5aqoep - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
This is clearly false advertising at the moment if macOS driver is unavailable. My ACQ is lying worthless.sweeper765 - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
There's no discount from Arrow and they have no idea of this special offer.DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
WPI charges a ridiculous handling fee on top of shipping and sales tax. WPGA appears to be in China. I wish they'd just sell the damn cards on Amazon.CheapSushi - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
FYI, the deal on Arrow is only for Friday and new customers get 20% off and they have a special for 10% off (THANKYOU code) also and get free shipping over $20. So that is the best place so far to get those NICs; take advantage. The other two were still cheaper than without the discount but had stuff like $10 handling fee and then an insane shipping fee but the price changes were already showing earlier (often Black Friday deals are from Wednesday to Sunday). .I had to email Aquantia directly because Arrow customer support had no idea what the hell I was talking about regarding a Black Friday promo but Aquantia confirmed it.
DigitalFreak - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Apparently Arrow didn't get the message. It's 11/24 and their site still has the $129 price.DigitalFreak - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Arrow finally updated their prices. Just bought 2.merikafyeah - Thursday, November 23, 2017 - link
It's about damn time these cards started coming down in price. But still, you can get genuine Intel dual-NIC 10Gbe cards on ebay for about $100 USD.martin0641 - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Ubiquity just launched a 10g switch with fiber uplinks for 600.erwos - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
They need a 10g switch that does it with CAT6 directly. SFP is nice for certain applications, but my runs are nowhere near requiring that.Dslay04 - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Actually it has both. 12 SFP+ and 4 Base-T. All 10G, does not support 2.5G or 5GSahrin - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Any computer with with multiple free x4 PCIe slots is a 10 Gb switch with these cards.bcronce - Sunday, November 26, 2017 - link
Good luck actually forwarding those packets at 10Gb rates. Most network stacks and CPUs couldn't handle it. 4 10Gb ports is going to need a minimum of about 19GiB/s(8.3GiB/s in and the same out) of memory bandwidth, and probably closer to 40GiB/s for practical reasons. That means quad channel DDR4.There are some optimizations in the pipeline for many OSes in order to handle 40Gb/100Gb NICs.
Netflix has recently been able to almost reach 100Gb/s, not full duplex, with 8 channel dual socket servers, with all kinds of custom code and 24+ cpu cores. A 10Gb switch trivially handles several hundreds of Gb/s for much less power than a single CPU.
CheapSushi - Thursday, November 30, 2017 - link
Well lucky me then I suppose since I'm waiting on pulling the trigger on a dual socket EPYC two node build. I want it all software defined. So no dedicated router or switch.nerd1 - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
I'd get two... but what's the main use for these for SOHO/home environment?Superfast NAS using multiple PCIe drives?
foobaz - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
I think you overestimate the capability of gigabit ethernet. Two mechanical hard drives in RAID-0 will saturate it.mczak - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
You don't need RAID-0 for that, just one semi-recent mechanical drive will do (with sequential access only, of course...). Albeit some of the slower ones might not be all that faster than what gb ethernet can do even with sequential access.Calista - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
It may be rather easy to saturate a 1Gb port. But with what? Assuming the user wish to take a backup of his or her entire 10 TB NAS. Nothing done daily if I say so. It still would only take roughly one day. Assuming something a bit more realistic, such as copying a 50 GB bluray image or game install. It would take ten minutes. The common 6-10 GB bluray rip would take a minute to copy. And two hours to watch.I'm not saying 10Gb is pointless. But for 99 percent of even enthusiasts 1Gb seem good enough.
13Gigatons - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
Always some doofus telling everyone that they don't "need" something. I suppose HD is good enough and we don't need 4K....but we are getting 4K anyways. Technology should always progress and 1Gigabit is old and tired now. If they can make 10 Gigabit standard over the next ten years then GREAT. My new motherboard or Laptop better come with the 10G Lan.PS: Hard drive speed is growing by leaps and bounds!!!!!!
Dslay04 - Friday, November 24, 2017 - link
Still need a FreeBSD driver so it can run on FreeNASimaheadcase - Sunday, November 26, 2017 - link
I hope people realize that upgrading to this speed is limited to most hardd rives anyways. Much like the transition to 1Gb back in the day from 100Mb. I forget link, but a small town made its own Fiber network a while back, and the problem they encountered was that they had to install bunch of hardrives to "cache" data before hand because of bandwidth limits on devices.Hurn - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
If you're looking for an 8 port switch that natively handles 10G, 5G, 2.5G, 1G, and 100M, and don't mind spending $500, there's the Buffalo BS-XP2008.I just got one, recently, and purchased a couple of AQN-107 cards, along with having a mobo that came with an AQ-108 onboard.
Unfortunately, I didn't know about this sale (and don't think Arrow has any price drop guarantee) or I would have waited.
Anyway, I can verify that the above mentioned switch actually is compatible with the AQ cards.
I connected the cards and switch as a completely separate subnet -- left the 1G existing network (with router connection to Internet) in place, and set up CIFS fileshares.
With Windows 8.1 and newer, have seen in excess of 1GB/sec. Windows 7 is somewhat slower, between 400 and 700 MB/sec, depending on whether the files were being "pushed" vs "pulled". In fact, with Windows 7, there wasn't much difference between the AQ107 (10G) and the 108 (5G).
Hurn - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
Sorry, typo - should be Buffalo BS-MP2008 as being fully compatible - I think the XP only does 1G / 10G (and not 2.5 G or 5G).Ff you don't need 2.5G or 5G, the XP2008 is a few bucks cheaper.
piroroadkill - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
If anyone bought some of these, and wants a cheap(ish) switch that has some ports, I've just ordered a Netgear MS510TX. $350 or so.1× 10Gbit (copper or SFP). 2× 5Gbit, 2×2.5Gbit, 4×1Gbit.
I ordered only 5Gbit Aquantia cards, because I can use good ol' Cat5e at 5Gbit. 10Gbit is massive overkill for the home right now, and the switches are very expensive + use a decent amount of power. I figure the above switch + 5Gbit cards is a good compromise. A boost to the machines that could use it.