USB wired network dongle

ASE001 · 21 Aug 2013 at 15:46

Has anyone had much experience with one of these devices (USB 2 to 1Gbit RJ45)? I need to add an addition network connection to my system which has no free PCI slots of any type. If one of these devices can give me reasonable performance with VLAN support then I don’t need to move to a full sized ATX motherboard and case.

For those interested the system is used as a media server fitted with 2 Freeview and 1 Freesat tuner cards. Running MediaPortal server and in the background I have VMPlayer virtual machine running pfsense as router and firewall, which I can use to stream media over the internet via a VPN connection. Which is working a treat but I want to beef up security and have a dedicated NIC for internet traffic (allowing only the VPN port to be open on that NIC).

ci_newman · 21 Aug 2013 at 16:13

I haven't used a Gigabit one but I use a 100Mb USB adapter on my work laptop to give me more connectivity for lab work etc, it works fine.

The throughput of USB2.0 is 480Mb/sec so you won't get Gigabit speeds for a start.

bremen1874 · 21 Aug 2013 at 16:14

I used to have a USB2 to 10/100 adapter that worked well enough. The CPU utilisation was a bit high, but processor speeds have come a long way since then.

You obviously won't get true Gigabit speeds using a USB 2 connection, but it probably wouldn't matter in this case.

ASE001 · 21 Aug 2013 at 16:21

I guessed that, although I don't need the full 1Gbit in this scenario. Although I have just spotted one that is USB 3 and is only marginally more expensive!
It’s a shame OCuk don’t stock them, although I doubt there would be much call for them, perhaps just geeks like me

or perhaps a Pi user?