4 ms·

Does anybody know why support for NBase-T is so uncommon and expensive in networking equipment? These 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps adapters look really nice, especially f

by Youden 6y ago

Does anybody know why support for NBase-T is so uncommon and expensive in networking equipment? These 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps adapters look really nice, especially for laptops and other devices with USB 3.2 ports but it appears to be near impossible to affordably connect them to a more-than-trivial network.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
1G has been around so long that it's cheap commodity hardware now. 10G was too much of a leap, IMO, so the hardware remains expensive. 10G over regular Cat5e is also relatively power hungry. 2.5G and 5G arrived relatively recently to fill the gap with the stalled jump to 10G. You can get started with something like a $110 QNAP 2.5G 5-port switch and some cheap 2.5G adapters on the computers you care about.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  > 10G was too much of a leap, IMO, so the hardware remains expensive. Switches are still quiet expensive, but 10G cards are quiet affordable nowadays. Notebooks can use a Thunderbolt 3 to 10G ethernet, but I think we will see 10G ports one consumer notebooks soon. I wouldn't invest in a bridge technology like 2.5G since it introduces non-trivial costs an offers only 2.5x speed up instead of 10x.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    > but I think we will see 10G ports one consumer notebooks soon Consumer notebooks are moving away from having ethernet ports in general. 10GBASE-T is relatively power hungry, requiring a couple of watts per port. I don't think we'll be seeing this in consumer notebooks any time soon. Also, I have one of those Thuderbolt to 10G adapters. It's not small. It's only useful when I'm doing bulk file transfers. 2.5G is fine for most work. Many consumer NAS boxes can barely saturate 2.5G anyway.
    - hutrdvnj 6y ago
      > Consumer notebooks are moving away from having ethernet ports in general. I might be wrong, but I don't think that every notebook will be as slim as the height of a USB-C port and with only one or two USB-C ports as only ports. This might be true for Apple and some companies that copy Apple. But there are still consumers notebooks that don't follow that trend and build some bulkier books with more ports and better thermals. > 10GBASE-T is relatively power hungry, requiring a couple of watts per port. I don't think we'll be seeing this in consumer notebooks any time soon. It all depends on customers needs. I would rather have a 10GBASE-T port than a dedicated GPU in my book, and I think the latter even consumes more watts.
  - gh02t 6y ago
    There are some affordable (relatively) 10 gig switches nowadays, though they are based on SFPs so you have to factor that into the price too. Mikrotik sells a 4 port SFP+ switch for about $150.
- wojciii 6y ago
  I have a 10 GE NAS (Truenas) and just bought the parts for a server which has 10 GE network interfaces built in. This was not more expensive than usual.. I'm waiting for the price of switches to get down to a level that I will accept. They are quite expensive now.
  - geerlingguy 6y ago
    10 GbE cards and adapters are still quite expensive (at least compared to cheap $10-20 1 Gbps gear); one of the cheapest ASUS 10G PCIe cards is $99, and the cheapest Thunderbolt 3 10G adapter (both with RJ45 connections) is $149. If you want to graduate to SFP+ those adapters usually cost a little more (plus the cost of a transceiver for fiber or copper). Cabling also means many existing installations (like my house) with 50+ ft runs need to be re-cabled if they actually want stable 10G speeds. My home network works great at 2.5G but there are a few Cat5e runs that don't give me 10 Gbps.
    - wojciii 6y ago
      The reason why I want to have 10 GE is that I made sure that the cables in my house could support these speeds. I expect more and more devices to support 10 GE as I will install them in the future (new TV, new workstation). This is just future proofing of my network installation.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  > 2.5G and 5G arrived relatively recently to fill the gap with the stalled jump to 10G. 10G wasn't stalled, it was and is for most completely unnecessary. 10G over copper requires Cat6, most homes have Cat5e if they're lucky. So why are 2.5G and 5G a thing? Well modern Wifi is faster than 1G, and most homes with Ethernet are Cat5e. Guess what 2.5G and 5G run over?
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    > 10G over copper requires Cat6, most homes have Cat5e if they're lucky. 10G over copper works fine at medium distances (up to about 45m / 150ft) on Cat5e. You would need Cat6a if you needed to guarantee 10G performance at 100m, but for the average home it's not a big deal to use Cat5e.
    - cptskippy 6y ago
      While that's true, it's also outside of the spec and no one would certify or stand by such an installation.
numpad0 6y ago
First standards for 10GE appeared as early as 2002, NBASE-T was as late as 2015. It’s a rather new standard, unnecessarily so in hindsight... apparently there were discussions about potential 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps modes while original 10GE was being defined but were eventually not included
- Teever 6y ago
  That seems odd, Do you know if there are technical reasons that prevented 10GE from having 2.5 and 5Gbps modes?
xnyan 6y ago
If you need a LOT of bandwidth, you are not using ethernet. If you have normal needs, 1gbps is fine, cheap, and everything works with it. Why spend more?
sliken 6y ago
Dunno, I bought a new cable modem, which has 2.5gbe. Most new motherboards come with 1 or 2 2.5gbe, at least if you spend another $20-$40 over the cheapest. Even raspberry pi like widgets are coming with 2.5Gbe, like the hardkernel odroid h2+. The later has a 4 port 2.5gbe expansion card if you want a total of 6. What "non-trivial" network is blocked by using 2.5 gbps? There are transceivers that let 2.5 gbe work with 10gb ports on older/common 10Gb switches. QNAP, linksys, and trendnet have a decent number of switches in the 5-18 port range, which seem splenty for most home networks.

by Youden 6y ago

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

1G has been around so long that it's cheap commodity hardware now. 10G was too much of a leap, IMO, so the hardware remains expensive. 10G over regular Cat5e is also relatively power hungry. 2.5G and 5G arrived relatively recently to fill the gap with the stalled jump to 10G. You can get started with something like a $110 QNAP 2.5G 5-port switch and some cheap 2.5G adapters on the computers you care about.

tutfbhuf 6y ago
> 10G was too much of a leap, IMO, so the hardware remains expensive. Switches are still quiet expensive, but 10G cards are quiet affordable nowadays. Notebooks can use a Thunderbolt 3 to 10G ethernet, but I think we will see 10G ports one consumer notebooks soon. I wouldn't invest in a bridge technology like 2.5G since it introduces non-trivial costs an offers only 2.5x speed up instead of 10x.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > but I think we will see 10G ports one consumer notebooks soon Consumer notebooks are moving away from having ethernet ports in general. 10GBASE-T is relatively power hungry, requiring a couple of watts per port. I don't think we'll be seeing this in consumer notebooks any time soon. Also, I have one of those Thuderbolt to 10G adapters. It's not small. It's only useful when I'm doing bulk file transfers. 2.5G is fine for most work. Many consumer NAS boxes can barely saturate 2.5G anyway.
  - hutrdvnj 6y ago
    > Consumer notebooks are moving away from having ethernet ports in general. I might be wrong, but I don't think that every notebook will be as slim as the height of a USB-C port and with only one or two USB-C ports as only ports. This might be true for Apple and some companies that copy Apple. But there are still consumers notebooks that don't follow that trend and build some bulkier books with more ports and better thermals. > 10GBASE-T is relatively power hungry, requiring a couple of watts per port. I don't think we'll be seeing this in consumer notebooks any time soon. It all depends on customers needs. I would rather have a 10GBASE-T port than a dedicated GPU in my book, and I think the latter even consumes more watts.
- gh02t 6y ago
  There are some affordable (relatively) 10 gig switches nowadays, though they are based on SFPs so you have to factor that into the price too. Mikrotik sells a 4 port SFP+ switch for about $150.
wojciii 6y ago
I have a 10 GE NAS (Truenas) and just bought the parts for a server which has 10 GE network interfaces built in. This was not more expensive than usual.. I'm waiting for the price of switches to get down to a level that I will accept. They are quite expensive now.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  10 GbE cards and adapters are still quite expensive (at least compared to cheap $10-20 1 Gbps gear); one of the cheapest ASUS 10G PCIe cards is $99, and the cheapest Thunderbolt 3 10G adapter (both with RJ45 connections) is $149. If you want to graduate to SFP+ those adapters usually cost a little more (plus the cost of a transceiver for fiber or copper). Cabling also means many existing installations (like my house) with 50+ ft runs need to be re-cabled if they actually want stable 10G speeds. My home network works great at 2.5G but there are a few Cat5e runs that don't give me 10 Gbps.
  - wojciii 6y ago
    The reason why I want to have 10 GE is that I made sure that the cables in my house could support these speeds. I expect more and more devices to support 10 GE as I will install them in the future (new TV, new workstation). This is just future proofing of my network installation.
cptskippy 6y ago
> 2.5G and 5G arrived relatively recently to fill the gap with the stalled jump to 10G. 10G wasn't stalled, it was and is for most completely unnecessary. 10G over copper requires Cat6, most homes have Cat5e if they're lucky. So why are 2.5G and 5G a thing? Well modern Wifi is faster than 1G, and most homes with Ethernet are Cat5e. Guess what 2.5G and 5G run over?
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > 10G over copper requires Cat6, most homes have Cat5e if they're lucky. 10G over copper works fine at medium distances (up to about 45m / 150ft) on Cat5e. You would need Cat6a if you needed to guarantee 10G performance at 100m, but for the average home it's not a big deal to use Cat5e.
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    While that's true, it's also outside of the spec and no one would certify or stand by such an installation.

numpad0 6y ago

First standards for 10GE appeared as early as 2002, NBASE-T was as late as 2015. It’s a rather new standard, unnecessarily so in hindsight... apparently there were discussions about potential 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps modes while original 10GE was being defined but were eventually not included

Teever 6y ago
That seems odd, Do you know if there are technical reasons that prevented 10GE from having 2.5 and 5Gbps modes?

xnyan 6y ago

If you need a LOT of bandwidth, you are not using ethernet. If you have normal needs, 1gbps is fine, cheap, and everything works with it. Why spend more?

sliken 6y ago

Dunno, I bought a new cable modem, which has 2.5gbe. Most new motherboards come with 1 or 2 2.5gbe, at least if you spend another $20-$40 over the cheapest. Even raspberry pi like widgets are coming with 2.5Gbe, like the hardkernel odroid h2+. The later has a 4 port 2.5gbe expansion card if you want a total of 6. What "non-trivial" network is blocked by using 2.5 gbps? There are transceivers that let 2.5 gbe work with 10gb ports on older/common 10Gb switches. QNAP, linksys, and trendnet have a decent number of switches in the 5-18 port range, which seem splenty for most home networks.