Fastest networking without going totally daft... ;)

katie279 · 7 Jul 2022 at 21:10

Hi all,

Have a couple of PCs in a study connected to two NAS' - relatively short runs around the room - maybe seven metres of CAT6 cabling .

I do lots of image/video editing, so improved network speeds definitely handy.

My PCs have Tomahawk B450 motherboards, so theyve got gigabit ethernet by default and the two NAS are Synology.

What's the fastest I could realistically get here? - I see people talking about 2.5gbps and faster now.

Happy to get network cards or new motherboards if necessary as upgrades, just curious what's the fastest you can get with reasonable upgrades these days!

Armageus · 7 Jul 2022 at 21:15

Most Synology will only do gigabit speed anyway so almost a none-starter unless you are going to upgrade your NAS

katie279 · 7 Jul 2022 at 21:24

Ah ok, my NAS says it has a dual gigabit link?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/Hardware/DataSheet/DiskStation/18-year/DS918%2B/enu/Synology_DS918_Plus_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjap6iKzuf4AhVXS0EAHQufDEEQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0SGa6tETC_T5umzKKKcl36

What does this mean? Ie does it mean I can split one CAT 7 cable to get 2gbps, or run two cables to my PCs or does it just mean I can have two separate PCs streaming at 1gbps each?

Quartz · 7 Jul 2022 at 21:42

katie279 said:
What's the fastest I could realistically get here?

OCUK sell 10 Gb ethernet cards. Can you add 10 Gb ethernet to your NAS?

katie279 · 7 Jul 2022 at 21:47

Hmm I don't 'think' so from the list, but not a bad suggestion - they seem to do an expansion card that works with the larger rack mount cards:

E10G18-T1 | Synology Inc.

Single-port, high-speed 10GBASE-T/NBASE-T add-in card for Synology servers

www.synology.com

-So basically if I got three 10gbps cards and a new NAS, then I'd be able to get ten times the speed? (And obviously CAT7 cables)

Might check prices as a lot of the cost of the NAS is in the hard drives which I could transfer...

andy_mk3 · 7 Jul 2022 at 21:49

katie279 said:
What does this mean? Ie does it mean I can split one CAT 7 cable to get 2gbps, or run two cables to my PCs or does it just mean I can have two separate PCs streaming at 1gbps each?

It means the latter.

Ps. Please don't go buying any CAT7 cable. Cat6a at the most is what you need.

sityeuropa · 7 Jul 2022 at 22:31

katie279 said:
Hi all,

Have a couple of PCs in a study connected to two NAS' - relatively short runs around the room - maybe seven metres of CAT6 cabling .

I do lots of image/video editing, so improved network speeds definitely handy.

My PCs have Tomahawk B450 motherboards, so theyve got gigabit ethernet by default and the two NAS are Synology.

What's the fastest I could realistically get here? - I see people talking about 2.5gbps and faster now.

Happy to get network cards or new motherboards if necessary as upgrades, just curious what's the fastest you can get with reasonable upgrades these days!

You can get 2.5gbps on NAS with USB 3.0 adapters £50, I discuss it here.

Upgraded Home Network 2.5Gb for £130

I wanted an upgrade between my computer and Synology NAS device. Found a TP Link TL-SH1005 2.5gbps switch from China £80 2x USB 2.5gbps adapters (R8152 compatible with Synology) - £50 Be careful which USB port you connect to, some on my X370 board were only negotiating 1gbps. So my computer...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

To get 2gbps aggregated through two ports, you would need a managed switch / router to do that.

Quartz · 7 Jul 2022 at 22:39

katie279 said:
So basically if I got three 10gbps cards and a new NAS, then I'd be able to get ten times the speed?

With multiple devices, you'll want a 10 Gb switch as well.

andy_mk3 · 7 Jul 2022 at 22:41

Also don't forget that unless you're going ssd/nvme in your storage then you're not going to get a ton faster than gigabit speeds from regular hard drives anyway.

katie279 · 7 Jul 2022 at 22:52

Ah loads of good advice as always!

Re speeds - does this apply even if I've got them in RAID? Ie four disks arrayed

Armageus · 7 Jul 2022 at 22:55

sityeuropa said:
You can get 2.5gbps on NAS with USB 3.0 adapters £50, I discuss it here.

Upgraded Home Network 2.5Gb for £130

I wanted an upgrade between my computer and Synology NAS device. Found a TP Link TL-SH1005 2.5gbps switch from China £80 2x USB 2.5gbps adapters (R8152 compatible with Synology) - £50 Be careful which USB port you connect to, some on my X370 board were only negotiating 1gbps. So my computer...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

I'm sure you can, but in my mind it's sort of defeating the point of buying an off the shelf supported NAS, if you then have to faff around SSHing into it to install unofficial drivers and run it in an unsupported configuration.

Each to their own however

sityeuropa · 7 Jul 2022 at 23:01

Armageus said:
I'm sure you can, but in my mind it's sort of defeating the point of buying an off the shelf supported NAS, if you then have to faff around SSHing into it to install unofficial drivers and run it in an unsupported configuration.

Each to their own however

I get that but I can honestly say it took two minutes to do.

Caged · 7 Jul 2022 at 23:30

You could link aggregate each NAS into a switch, and then connect to that switch with 10Gb cards in your PCs. I don't think attempting to go much quicker on a 2018 NAS with a Celeron in is going to be worth it.

katie279 · 7 Jul 2022 at 23:37

Hmm ok, so it feels like new NAS is probably the key here and can get some NVMe while I'm at it....

There appear to be a few Synologys now with 10gbe connections and lots you can plug an upgrade card into, so might nose around for best price...

Armageus · 8 Jul 2022 at 06:49

Do you use any of the Synology specific features? If not then you could build your own nas.

The other point is do you even need a Nas? If you end up with 10gb network cards in both your pcs, just add more storage to one of them and use it as a backup target (assuming backups are your main use case)

bledd · 8 Jul 2022 at 06:51

If you're doing this, forget 2.5 and jump straight to 10Gbps, 2.5 is such a pointless jump.

Cheapest way is 10gb sfp cards, Mikrotik SFP switch and DAC cables.

You could use 10Gb RJ45 cards, but you're looking minimum £100 per PC for the NICs.

10Gb Synology start at about £500 ish plus Network card.

katie279 · 8 Jul 2022 at 08:13

Yip totally agree about 2.5 - 10x faster is worth the time, 2.5x feels incremental....!

Ooh that's interesting - which Synology are you referring to as £500? Cheapest I'd seen so far was £1000+?

bimbleuk · 8 Jul 2022 at 09:23

I bought a QNAP NAS because they tend to be easier to upgrade which is why I have a 5 GbE NIC in it currently connected to another 5 GbE NIC in my main PC. I see 2-3 times the speed of 1 GbE at best so probably limited by the HDDs in RAID. Still a decent upgrade from 1 GbE.

I'll probably upgrade my office switch to 2.5 GbE soon so all my immediate PCs can all run at 2.5 GbE fairly cheaply. To upgrade the POE switch downstairs starts to add to the cost but that's mostly for the TV, AV amp & CCTV so no current benefit.

visibleman · 8 Jul 2022 at 13:17

With a DS918, you can do 5GbE using a USB 3.2 5GbE adapter (like a QNAP QNA-UC5G1T) but it does require installing drivers on to the Syno, which isn't overly difficult. But that's about as far as you're getting with a DS918.
If you want to stick with Synology for 10GbE, then a DS1621 is likely you're best choice, albeit expensive (£1400ish). Alternatively, the DS1522 is about to be released and that can be upgraded to 10GbE with the addon card but that's likely to be around £600/700 with the 10GbE card being around £120.

As @Armageus says, if you're not using any of the Synology specific features and apps then a homebrew solution may work out to be more cost effective.

Caged · 8 Jul 2022 at 13:51

I wonder if you could break the M.2 PCIe slot out and put a compatible 10Gb card on the end of it. It wouldn't look pretty but you'd not have the issues of having to hack your own drivers onto the box.