Netgear GS110MX - 2 x 10Gbase-t + 8 x1 GbE - $138 on Amazon

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madbrain

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Jan 5, 2019
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Got this in my camelcamelcamel notifications today. Lowest price ever.


I already have one of these switches in my home theater room for a little over a year and can vouch it's a great switch. It is completely fanless and thus silent, the way any switch for home use should be. No issues with Aquantia cards, and works fine with 9 KB jumbo frames. It's unmanaged but works perfectly for my needs. Wish it had just one or two more 10gig ports.

I just ordered one more for my master bedroom which also has an HTPC. Now just need to run new CAT6A or higher cable over there, and one more NIC, sigh.
 
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Samir

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Nice find! I can't wait to see more of these and cheaper 2.5G nics hit the market.
 

madbrain

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Nice find! I can't wait to see more of these and cheaper 2.5G nics hit the market.
There are some cheap 2.5 GB NICs on the market already. But they can be problematic.
Case in point : this $26.99 NIC on Amazon.

It works fine with the above listed Netgear switch.

But has problems with the more expensive Trendnet 7080-ES switch in my home office ...

See http://blog.madbrain.com/2020/06/realtek-rtl-8156-usb-25-gbps-ethernet.html

Still not sure if I'm going to keep this cheap 2.5 Gbase-T Realtek NIC or not. I have 4 days left to return it. Probably time to pack it as Trendnet hasn't provided a firmware fix yet.
 

Samir

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Yep, seems like the ccc on amazon that's 2.5Gbps is half--.... at best. After checking out your link and your tests, I don't think it's the switch. And I don't think it's realtek itself, but the implementation in the new 'dirt cheap' 2.5Gbps nics. It sounds like almost a failure akin to how fake intel nics would have oddball issues...
 

madbrain

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Jan 5, 2019
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Yep, seems like the ccc on amazon that's 2.5Gbps is half--.... at best. After checking out your link and your tests, I don't think it's the switch. And I don't think it's realtek itself, but the implementation in the new 'dirt cheap' 2.5Gbps nics. It sounds like almost a failure akin to how fake intel nics would have oddball issues...
My tests show a direct connection with a CAT6 cable between Aquantia and Realtek NICs gives full 2.5 Gbps throughput. So it works as expected without any switch. Also show 2.2 Gbps when they are both plugged in to the cheap Netgear GS110MX switch. Which is frankly very good at this price point.

Things only go bad when they are both hooked up to Trendnet TEG-7080ES switch. There is some incompatibility of some sort. Can't say for sure if it's Realtek or Trendnet that is at fault, but they don't play well together.

My guess is, some firmware update will resolve this, either from Trendnet, Realtek, or perhaps from both.
I have a case open with Trendnet. They are aware of the issue, but can't give me an ETA for a firmware update.
I haven't head a peep from either Cable Creation or Realtek since I contacted them.

Given the way things are, though, I would say it's safer to bet on 10 Gbase-T technology, than 2.5 Gbase-T or 5 Gbase-T. 10 Gbase-T technology has been around much longer (since 2006), and the bugs have mostly been worked out of it. NBASE-T has only been an IEEE standard since September 2016. There weren't many products to test interoperability with, but now there are. Equipment vendors that promised NBASE-T compatibility will need to step up and fix their products when they run into them.