1Gbps is to slow

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VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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I'd like to apologize for making you take the time to extensively correct me. I appreciate the effort.

About the SAS 12Gbit/sec thing - my (apparently incorrect) understanding had been that some mobos (x79?) had combo SAS/SATA ports on them. In fact, my AMD/MSI 790GX mobo has an onboard Promise SAS/SATA RAID chipset, and the ports looked identical to a normal SATA port. So it was my understanding that they were identical in terms of physical-layer interface. (Though, I did know that SATA was half-duplex, while SAS was full-duplex / dual-ported.)

I now also understand the fuller picture regarding the switching speeds and heat generated.

When you brought up the AC1300 wifi adapter, I kind of dismissed that, as I have some USB3.0 AC1200 adapters, that don't get overly hot, even while I'm tranferring big ISOs over a link at roughly a 600-650MBit/sec link speed. (375Mbit/sec actual throughput.)

Edit: Oh, and regarding NAS units saturating a 1Gbit/sec ethernet link - my QNAP TS-451 that I bought, does, and both my TS-451 as well as the the ARM-based TS-431 include dual 1GbE ports, and support teaming. Since both of those are old enough to be discontinued, I figured that speeds like that were standard fare these days in NAS units.
 
X

XavierMace

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2013
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The physical layer isn't just the connector. SAS is compatible with SATA but SATA is not compatible with SAS. SAS has different signaling and voltage specifications. In addition the SATA connector is not something you normally see on the host side expect in consumer products. Generally you have a 4 lane SFF connector on the host side leading to a backplane with a SFF connector.

I'll apologize if I sounded like a dick, it's been a rough holiday. I'm a details guy, and in my job function when I use a word like saturate, I'm using that very specifically. I don't mean just a high load, I mean completely max out the connection. So, with that said, I'm not trying to pick on you but I have to counter your latter two points.

375Mbps is about 30% utilization which means they aren't going to be at peak power output. That's not bad speed for wireless, I might even say it's good for consumer gear. But I'm able to exceed that substantially in my environment and I've had two different AC1300 adapters overheat in those situations.

Regarding the NAS, I seem to recall you saying previously (and I could be completely mistaken) that you were getting 90MB/s or so out of them? If so, that's not saturating GbE.
 
JimKiler

JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
3,558
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VirtualLarry said:
Or backing up your NAS to your server. Try ten hours. (You do back up your NAS, don't you?)
Click to expand...

Maybe the first time but normal software will just backup the updated files after the initial backup. I sync my HD to a NAS nightly and it usually takes longer to look for the changes than to copy the files.
 
jimbob200521

jimbob200521

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2005
4,108
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Just read through this thread and enjoyed just about every word of it.

That being said, I'd like to say that I'm happy with my 1gigabit home Ethernet setup. I would say the setup that my finances have allowed me to setup and my usage of said setup are a bit above your average consumer but since I don't make sacks of money every work day, definitely below high end consumer and the profession market.

First off, I want to clarify that my definition of the "average consumer" here is someone who has a modest internet connection (25-50ish) with a lot of streaming devices for your Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc. To me, the average consumer doesn't do a lot of big file transfers, doesn't have numerous high end computers either downloading large files daily or doing daily entire backups of said computers. The average consumer doesn't have a server in there house and if they do any kind of backups, it's probably to an external hard drive.

That said, I have an AC1750 router with 4 gigabit ports for local duties and one gigabit port to the WAN side (my internet maxes out at about 80-90mbps so that's more than excessive). That is responsible for serving my nVidia Shield for the main TV/streaming duties as well as our cell phones, tablets, laptop, etc. I then have an 8 port consumer grade gigabit switch in my man cave (game room, computer room, geek cave, etc; it goes by many names hah). I have an uplink from that back to my main router. I also have an Xbox One, Xbox 360, my server, my main PC, as well as a couple other cords for whatever PC I'm working on at the time hooked up to that switch. My server has two RAID1 setups for redundancy and my main PC is all SSD based (mass storage is taken care of on the server side). I do weekly incremental backups of my main PC to my server (done overnight so even if it did take hours to do, it wouldn't be an issue). My server also acts as a Plex server within and outside of my house. I do most of the downloading to my main PC and transfer any files I want to keep to my server (including ISO's, games, movies, TV shows, etc).

All that to say that I am able to get around 100MB/sec (give or take) transferring from an SSD on my main rig to a RAID1 on my server while this same server may also have a Plex stream or two going. Personally, I'm very happy with this as most of my life was spent with 10/100 (yuck). If someone is savy enough to have a server setup in there house, setup there own network layout, setup backups, etc then they are not your AVERAGE consumer.

We "geeks" are growing in numbers but the majority of our country's main consumer base has one router and a lot of wireless devices. The majority of our countries main consumer base doesn't even understand the word ethernet, know what speed/spec there wireless is, etc. If they can get on the internet, download a file, stream a movie, etc they are happy.

Therefore the demand for this faster tech in our homes isn't there until Joe Blow wants it. We simply don't need 10G ethernet in our homes, most of us anyway. If you really feel that you do, then invest in the equipment (new or used), install it, and report back how you like the electric bills, heat, etc.
 
sdifox

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
95,224
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jimbob200521 said:
Just read through this thread and enjoyed just about every word of it.

That being said, I'd like to say that I'm happy with my 1gigabit home Ethernet setup. I would say the setup that my finances have allowed me to setup and my usage of said setup are a bit above your average consumer but since I don't make sacks of money every work day, definitely below high end consumer and the profession market.

First off, I want to clarify that my definition of the "average consumer" here is someone who has a modest internet connection (25-50ish) with a lot of streaming devices for your Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc. To me, the average consumer doesn't do a lot of big file transfers, doesn't have numerous high end computers either downloading large files daily or doing daily entire backups of said computers. The average consumer doesn't have a server in there house and if they do any kind of backups, it's probably to an external hard drive.

That said, I have an AC1750 router with 4 gigabit ports for local duties and one gigabit port to the WAN side (my internet maxes out at about 80-90mbps so that's more than excessive). That is responsible for serving my nVidia Shield for the main TV/streaming duties as well as our cell phones, tablets, laptop, etc. I then have an 8 port consumer grade gigabit switch in my man cave (game room, computer room, geek cave, etc; it goes by many names hah). I have an uplink from that back to my main router. I also have an Xbox One, Xbox 360, my server, my main PC, as well as a couple other cords for whatever PC I'm working on at the time hooked up to that switch. My server has two RAID1 setups for redundancy and my main PC is all SSD based (mass storage is taken care of on the server side). I do weekly incremental backups of my main PC to my server (done overnight so even if it did take hours to do, it wouldn't be an issue). My server also acts as a Plex server within and outside of my house. I do most of the downloading to my main PC and transfer any files I want to keep to my server (including ISO's, games, movies, TV shows, etc).

All that to say that I am able to get around 100MB/sec (give or take) transferring from an SSD on my main rig to a RAID1 on my server while this same server may also have a Plex stream or two going. Personally, I'm very happy with this as most of my life was spent with 10/100 (yuck). If someone is savy enough to have a server setup in there house, setup there own network layout, setup backups, etc then they are not your AVERAGE consumer.

We "geeks" are growing in numbers but the majority of our country's main consumer base has one router and a lot of wireless devices. The majority of our countries main consumer base doesn't even understand the word ethernet, know what speed/spec there wireless is, etc. If they can get on the internet, download a file, stream a movie, etc they are happy.

Therefore the demand for this faster tech in our homes isn't there until Joe Blow wants it. We simply don't need 10G ethernet in our homes, most of us anyway. If you really feel that you do, then invest in the equipment (new or used), install it, and report back how you like the electric bills, heat, etc.
Click to expand...

My Baystack 5520 48PWR probably draws 75kWH a month all by itself. Don't want to know about the R710 or the eight or nine external hdds
 
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jimbob200521

jimbob200521

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2005
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sdifox said:
My Baystack 5520 probably draws 75kWH a month all by itself. Don't want to know about the R710 or the eight or nine external hdds
Click to expand...

Yeah that electrical cost is the biggest part that keeps me from dabbling more in that area. I've got a 24 port Cisco rackmount switch in the closet (10/100 but that's not the point) I could hook up and have looked into getting some surplus server stuff off eBay to tinker with but if I had all the toys I wanted I'd have an electric bill to be ashamed of. And that's kinda my point of at least my situation, I have no real world use for that kind of stuff, and neither does most of the population. Sure, I can saturate the gigabit I have now but how often, other than for a screenshot or bragging rights or the occasional large transfer, do I actually need that kind of horsepower? Fun to tinker with but overkill for the majority.

Edit: And that applies to a lot of PC tech. Sure, being able to move an entire terabyte SSD to another terabyte SSD in under a minute would be cool but how often are you going to be doing that kind of thing? There are always exceptions but those are just that: exceptions. Like I said in my previous post, most of us are happy to be streaming a movie, browsing Facebook, etc. And those of us that aren't happy with that and must have 10 gigabit transfer speeds and the like come to online forums and talk about it or go to eBay and buy it.
 
sdifox

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
95,224
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jimbob200521 said:
Yeah that electrical cost is the biggest part that keeps me from dabbling more in that area. I've got a 24 port Cisco rackmount switch in the closet (10/100 but that's not the point) I could hook up and have looked into getting some surplus server stuff off eBay to tinker with but if I had all the toys I wanted I'd have an electric bill to be ashamed of. And that's kinda my point of at least my situation, I have no real world use for that kind of stuff, and neither does most of the population. Sure, I can saturate the gigabit I have now but how often, other than for a screenshot or bragging rights or the occasional large transfer, do I actually need that kind of horsepower? Fun to tinker with but overkill for the majority.
Click to expand...
My utility company sends me a chart showing I use more power than 99% of houses of similar size in my city and tips on how to lower powe consumption ;)

I pulled one of the psu out of the server, hoping to drop a few kwh of power use.

Hiveap 340 has both ethernet ports sucking 48vdc. Plus two more wap on wallwarts.
 
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jimbob200521

jimbob200521

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2005
4,108
29
91
sdifox said:
My utility company sends me a chart showing I use more power than 99% of houses of similar size in my city and tips on how to lower powe consumption ;)

I pulled one of the psu out of the server, hoping to drop a few kwh of power use.

Hiveap 340 has both ethernet ports sucking 48vdc. Plus two more wap on wallwarts.
Click to expand...

This whole conversation about power usage has got me wondering just what the guys in this thread alone would do if they had free electricity for life, I know I've got a few frivolous ideas of my own.
 
sdifox

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
95,224
15,243
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jimbob200521 said:
This whole conversation about power usage has got me wondering just what the guys in this thread alone would do if they had free electricity for life, I know I've got a few frivolous ideas of my own.
Click to expand...
I dream of turning my pool into a heat sink and cool my house with it. And cool the server stack of course. While it adds a little heat to the pool.
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,523
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www.anyf.ca
That's one thing I like about "whitebox" builds is they use way less power. My Xeon Supermicro 24 bay NAS uses like 75 watts. Though I've added more drives over the years so I might be pushing close to 100 now. Oddly workstation hardware is very different, my workstation uses like 300w lol. I think that's because of the video card. Video cards use a ridiculous amount of power now days.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,389
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Awesome! Time for 2.5Gbit/sec internet connections now. Google Fiber and FIOS, where are you?
 
R

rchunter

Senior member
Feb 26, 2015
933
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I'm with XavierMace on this, it's kind of futile right now when spindle drives cant go much faster than 1gb anyway. Maybe once ssd's start getting larger and cheaper it will be worth it. And by then 10gb nics and switches will be much cheaper too. I give it 5 years from now 10GbE will be pretty common, I don't know if everyone will be using it but most enthusiasts on this forum will.
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,523
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www.anyf.ca
You can always team nics too. I kinda want to experiment with that. Might put a quad if ever I need to shut down my file server. I have an onboard dual but one of those is for IPMI so not sure how I would go about teaming them while still having IMPI working. Easier to just slap another nic in there and keep the onboard for management.
 
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XavierMace

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2013
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Red Squirrel said:
That's one thing I like about "whitebox" builds is they use way less power. My Xeon Supermicro 24 bay NAS uses like 75 watts. Though I've added more drives over the years so I might be pushing close to 100 now. Oddly workstation hardware is very different, my workstation uses like 300w lol. I think that's because of the video card. Video cards use a ridiculous amount of power now days.
Click to expand...

Not really. It's all about the parts. HP/Dell/etc have more options for more efficient power supplies (and other parts), just like Supermicro. They're just easier to find on Supermicro's. My Dell R610 was running about 130w with a pair of hex cores, 96Gb of RAM, and a handful of PCIe cards. That's gone now, but I want to say that was a 350w Gold rated power supply. My DL380G6's are around 160w with similar parts but with the RAM bumped up to 128Gb and a couple of SSD's added using 450w Platinum's.

Except for the fans. Whiteboxes trail behind OEM's for cooling capacity by quite a bit. My Supermicro 1U has 3 fan's. The HP's have 6.
 
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D

daxzy

Senior member
Dec 22, 2013
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The main problem is network infrastructure. For the longest time, 10G was on SC/LC MM fiber. 10G Base-T came around eventually, but it had a whole slew of problems with overheating PHY's and what not. Now it's mostly fixed, but there's still the problem of cost, in the devices themselves and a switch. 1G Base-T is just pennies per port, and the switches are only a few $ per port with very low power requirements.

OP, if you really want 10G, you can just buy a used Intel X540-T2. You can use existing cat5e cabling (up to around 30m) for 10G speeds.

But what I'm waiting for is NBase-T, which should be coming soon-ish. It basically can use existing cat5e for 2.5G and 5G speeds at up to 100m. And since the PHY doesn't require ridiculous amounts of power, the switches should be pretty cheap (and low power as well).
 
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