New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper
11 points by johnklos
11 points by johnklos
FWIW, I got a Xikestor 10G adapter from AliExpress with a Realtek chipset, and it is actually slower than the 5Gbps adapter that was half the price. If you really need 10G speeds, you'll get more reliable results from a Thunderbolt or USB4 adapter like the QNAP ones I've been using.
Can't confirm. The Xikestor 10G gives me 8.2Gbit or so via USB3 under Linux with third-party drivers. The 5G adapter I have gets a lot hotter too.
My main point of criticism is that these USB drivers are not being upstreamed to Linux and FreeBSD.
I'm still longing for a 10G version of Netgear's GS10[58] switches: rather inexpensive and compact.
I mean. They were like 30 to 50 EUR 20 years ago and they're still the same price and specs. Nothing or almost nothing (I may have seen a tp-link recently) seems to tackle the > 1G speeds.
Anyone got recommendations?
I mean. They were like 30 to 50 EUR 20 years ago and they're still the same price and specs.
Not 10Gbit, but we have a couple of Unifi Flex Mini 2.5G around the house and they are ~50 Euro, offer 2.5 GbE and are managed/support VLANs. So, there certainly is progress, but consumer and small company stuff, 2.5GbE is currently the sweet sport for > 1GbE.
Been looking for a while too. Best bet is probably second hand enterprise gear but the main problem with those is they tend be loud AF.
~$25/port is the current cheap end for 10G, lots of random chinese brands making more or less the same thing in slightly different cases. https://www.servethehome.com has tests for a lot of these
I saw this post when it ranked high on the orange site and found it very poor, mostly pushing a product without interesting technical details. The benchmarks seem very shallow?
This being up upvoted makes me wonder: what am I missing?
Interesting to see that there are 10Gbps versions of these coming out now too. I've got a couple of the 5Gbps ones, and while they're a significant improvement in price and portability on the €220+ of Thunderbolt/USB4 10Gbps devices, I've not found them to be 100% reliable. Under sustained load, they seem to eventually fall over, at least my "Club 3D" branded ones, on macOS. They feel too hot to comfortably touch in these situations, though I'm pretty sure they hit more than the 42°C of the 10Gb ones in the article under light load too. I had similar issues with 2.5Gbps ones. It's hard to say whether it's a systemic issue with the Realtek chipsets, or thermals on specific adapter models.
I'm not sure I necessarily want to drop €100 on one of these new 10Gbps variants, especially as performance isn't great on 10Gbps USB ports, and ports that support Gen2x2 continue to be somewhat rare.
I'd be curious if the 20Gbps transport variant of USB4 would allow slightly cheaper, cooler-running chips than the Thunderbolt-derived ones. After all, USB4 seems to be winning out over Gen2x2.