10G networks have been used for many years at the enterprise level and in data centers, switches have for years incorporating SFP + ports for fiber that allow us to make uplinks at high speeds, without having a bottleneck in these trunks. However, in recent times 10G networks have become popular in home environments. Does it really deserve to set up a 10G network at home? Will I be able to take advantage of the high speed with my equipment? Today in RedesZone we are going to explain why it does not deserve, currently, to set up a 10G network at home.
If you are considering setting up a 10G network in your home, keep in mind everything that we are going to explain to you now, because it is possible that you change your mind and end up setting up a 2.5G Multigigabit network in your home . It is clear that the benefits of 10G networks in our home are many: we can transfer at speeds of up to 10Gbps real in the home local network, squeezing our NAS servers and also our PCs to the maximum, but today we are going to tell you the worst of the 10G networks.
Price
10G networks are currently expensive, especially switches if we want each and every one of the ports to be 10G. For example, one of the best switches with 10G Multigigabit and unmanageable ports is the NETGEAR MS510TXM model, and it is already worth about 500 euros. Other switch models that are 10G and manageable, it is very likely that they will go at prices of approximately € 800, and as you can see, all these switches are rackable and have active cooling with fans, therefore, they are not very suitable for a home environment where we want to put the switch on a table.
If you cannot afford these prices and you want a switch with some 10G ports, they also exist, logically at a much lower price, but you will be limited in the number of 10G ports, some of these models have only two 10G Multigigabit ports, and others models have 4 10G Multigigabit ports, if in your case it is enough, then you can go for them. One of the ones we recommend in RedesZone is the QNAP QSW-M408-4C model, a managed switch with 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports, and four 10G Combo ports, the 10GBASE-T ports allow Multigigabit speeds.
As you can see, almost 400 euros for the switch with 10G ports, a very high price if you are not going to make the most of it.
We must also take into account 10G network cards, in this case they are clearly cheaper, and are around 80 euros approximately, but to be able to squeeze 10G networks you must have at least two devices with 10G connectivity, in addition, it would also be highly recommended to have of a NAS with this type of ports, in order to take advantage of 10G networks (high speed).
Energy consumption
10G networks consume more energy than typical Gigabit Ethernet networks, it can be seen perfectly in the standby consumption or in operation of the different switches. For example, we are going to compare two switch models with the same number of ports, one with all 10GBASE-T ports, and the other with all 1000BASE-T ports.
- DXS-1210-10TS: 69W maximum consumption, 32W standby consumption
- DGS-1210-10: maximum consumption 6.5W, standby consumption of 2W
As you can see, the difference in consumption is clear, taking into account that the switches have to be always on to provide connectivity to the network, we will not be able to turn them off to save energy. Depending on the switch you buy, logically it will consume more or less, we have put two models of switches that we know well and that we have worked with.
Temperatures
Another point against 10G networks is the temperatures, currently the switches that have Gigabit Ethernet ports, and even those that are PoE, incorporate passive cooling, without any fan, therefore, the noise due to cooling is zero. However, when we buy 10G switches we must also take into account that the network electronics get much hotter, and for this reason, all switches with all 10G ports incorporate fans to keep temperatures at optimal values.
Some switches like the one we have mentioned before QNAP, have a small fan that is on standby if they do not transfer a lot of data in the local network, but if we are going to squeeze it as much as possible, keep in mind that it will be activated.
Do you really have hardware to take advantage of 10G speeds?
If everything we have explained has not convinced you to delay the adoption of 10G networks, are you sure you are able to take advantage of the performance of 10G networks? The first thing to keep in mind is that the maximum capacity of 10G networks is about 1.2GB / s, or 1,200MB / s approximately. If you have a hard disk in your PC, you will get a maximum reading and writing speed of around 180MB / s approximately, if instead of a hard disk you have a SATA3 SSD, the speed increases to approximately 550MB / s, very far the limit of 10G networks. If you want to squeeze 10G networks, what you should do is have an NVMe SSD that achieves speeds greater than 1,200MB / s both in reading and writing, otherwise, you will have a bottleneck in the hardware of your computer, and not in the local network.
Is it worth having large capacity NVMe SSDs to transfer a lot of data over the network? We must take into account the price difference between a 2TB NVMe SSD and a normal 2TB hard drive, or a 2TB capacity SATA3 SSD. If you don’t mind spending so much money, then go ahead, you can set up a 10G network, but you will only squeeze it in certain circumstances (backups, transferring very large ISO files, movies etc).
If you are considering a NAS server, NAS currently allows you to use multiple drives in RAID to increase the speed of reading and / or writing, and we even have the SSD Caché to further accelerate the speed in reading and writing. Is all this worth it to you to squeeze the 10G network at home? We believe not.
As you have seen, we have many points against to delay the adoption of 10G domestic networks, it is clear that in the future it will be the most normal to have it, but today we have Multigigabit 2.5G and 5G networks that are cheaper, they heat up much less, and yes we will be able to squeeze them to the maximum, both for future Internet connections with FTTH, as well as in local networks.
