3 ms·
Right, I guess most of us used to, but we save a lot of money that way. Still, why waste money on energy when you don't have to? If you could invest some money
by Fnoord 3y ago
Right, I guess most of us used to, but we save a lot of money that way. Still, why waste money on energy when you don't have to? If you could invest some money on different, more efficient hardware?
Yeah, Thunderbolt would work. I use LAG on my NAS with 4x 1 gbit, I got some devices with USB-C to 2.5 gbit NIC, these are cheap (30 EUR or so). I'd then use that managed 10 gbit switch which I put off by default. If I'd need the speed, I'd put it on. Thunderbolt is even better (way faster and cheaper, multipurpose, though you'd need to set up TCP/IP over USB), but I prefer AMD over Intel.
If you want a TB4 one with Intel, there's many Intel NUCs available, very cheap on Ali. Many of the ones I saw not from Ali are just rebrands (some, admittedly, with Coreboot).
- tombert 3y agoAnnoyingly, I can't really do 2.5G because when I was looking to upgrade my network, I ordered a bunch of 15 year old old 10GbE switch, because I mistakenly assumed that that would work with 2.5G as well. It turns out that the 2.5GbE came after 10GbE and so compatibility is not guaranteed, so I ended up having to upgrade everything in my house to 10GbE to make the switches work. Fortunately, used 10GbE cards from data centers go for around $40 on eBay. Thunderbolt cards cost a lot more so I only have one for my MacBook, and it's a big chunky boy that weights half a pound. I was looking into some of those single-purpose computers, some of which will sometimes have a PCIe slot.