Why do we still use ethernet

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By "all types of cables" I assume you mean SATA3, USB3, USB-C, HDMI, Thunderlbolt etc that can push beyond today' ethernet standard of 1gb.

There are at least 2 recent threads here about the desire to do USB3 LAN beyond 1gb, and the basic answer to all these is, these other type of cables have short length limitation, not suitable for a whole-house LAN.

CAT cables, are designed for cable length required of LAN, the protocols involved are designed for it.

But no matter what LAN speed you have, as soon as you hit the Internet... BRAKE!

As already mentioned, if you have the dough for 10gbit, hey is only $$$.

Darthutos

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because ISP only offer less than 1gb. unless you want to spend 1000 dollars for 10gb internet. and that in specific cities of the US

also we use ethernet because it's more stable than wireless.

typical cable vs all type of cable --don't know what you are talking about there.
 

GraySenshi

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I was referring to LAN to LAN in a single location but yes isp for 10gigabit would but astronomical for a consumer. Also what is the most they could do with the port in the future. Or will fiber be norm for consumer based routers
 

USAFRet

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You can buy 10GB devices and cables. But unless you are in a big data center, that is just wasted money.

Specifically for routers...your connection to the outside world is less than 1GB, so why pay for devices that would support more than that?
 

GraySenshi

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Well for me I was wanting to set up my own server and all my computers video rendering and what not strate from the server/nas and only have a os drive in each machine. To do this I would need more then a 1 gigabit per lan
 

USAFRet

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And how have you determined that you need more than a 1GB connection between devices?
Not handwavy determined...actual numbers and performance.
You can certainly set up your own 10G or fiber connection between your internal devices. If you have the money.

My NAS box has 4 LAN ports, each capable of their own GigE connection.
 

Darthutos

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that's fine with one port of 1 gb on your nas. unless you think 112 MB/s is too slow for 1 transfer or 60 MB for 2 PC simultaneous or 38 MB/s for 3 PC simultaneously. etc.
but then you would only need to buy a pcie internal 10 gb ethernet card from intel which cost 1000 dollars online so that you can have 1120 MB/s for 1 computer using the NAS, 600MB for 2 simultaneous, 380MB for 3 simultaneous. or 280 MB for 4 simultaneous.

Just how many computers do you want to use the NAS simultaneously? and what kind of speed are you satisfied with? because I don't see a scenariio where you need 2 ports.
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/78phP6/intel-wired-network-card-e10g42bt
 
The listed etherent speed is one direction so 1gbps ethernet is really 1gb transmit PLUS 1 gb receive so it is 2gbps when comparing it to say 1300 mbps (so 1.3 gbps) wifi. And at the max distance of ethernet you still get max speed, max distance of wifi and you get 10% max speed at best.
Not to mention the newer ethernet cables (like Cat6a and Cat 7) can support 10gbps connection at the full 300ft distance.

In terms of speed and reliability, wifi and other mediums do not even come close to etherent. This is why every medium to large business pays a lot of money to have every computer connected via ethernet.

In regards to why only 1gbps consumer routers is a because not enough people truley need it, thus it is still really expensive.
If we suddenly had 5gbps internet connections going to a moderate percentage of homes the prices of 10gb equipment would drop overnight. Right now though most homes dont even have access to 100 mbps internet let alone 1gbps; and since the masses dont even know/care about home lan speed only the connection of their ISP they are perfectly content with N300 wifi and 100mbps LAN connection. The majority of the masses dont use/dont care about their LAN speed as along as they get their full internet speed (which current average in USA is 50mbps).
 
The bottleneck just moves pretty much. The disk subsystem quickly becomes the bottleneck. Sure you can put SSD arrays in all your equipment but the price goes up and up. When you look at the more economical options such as using red type of drives in a array they only get a little over 1gbit.

In the end right now there is nothing that really needs it. Its like a guy who was asking similar question in the disk forums a few weeks ago. When you do the math it would only save a couple of seconds for his backup he wanted to do. Over the course of a year you might save a hour total. It seemed more a case of bragging rights than a actual need. Pretty much the only thing that needs these huge speeds are commercial servers providing services to huge number of users.
 

USAFRet

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Moderator


I can easily see a use for more than one LAN port.

A firewall OS such as pfSense, doing standard firewall duty.
1 LAN port to talk to the outside world(modem), 1 LAN port to talk to the router.
And then 1 LAN port after the router, to talk to the devices inside. This LAN port is run by a whole different OS on the NAS box.
 


A single hard drive tops at around 120MBps (just under 1gbps) so transfering from a single hard drive to a single hard drive is not going to be bottlenecked by 1gbps eterent connection.
Now going from SSD on PC to large disk array on NAS would be held back by 1gbps connection.

You can overcome some of this limitation through what is called nic teaming (also called link aggregation).
With higher end nic cards you can merge the ports together so if you have a 4 port card you can merge it to have 4 gbps bandwidth over a "single" connection and thus a single IP address.
I team 2 nics together on my server to allow more multi-tasking bandwidth for my home network.
Now to get more then 1gbps on a single transfer you would need both the server and the client PC to have teamed nics, and of course lots of switch ports.
 

USAFRet

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Ha.
For my backups, time is mostly irrelevant.
A full image of my C drive takes 15-16 minutes, across the LAN to the NAS box. SSD, across the LAN, to a HDD RAID 5 in the QNAP NAS.
Nightly incrementals take maybe 2-5 mins.
If that were reduced by 30% each...it does not matter. Because that backup happens while I sleep.
 

GraySenshi

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Yea I was looking into the teaming, but wasn't successful maybe it wasn't proper hardware. But I would like to at least for now max out a good ssd wile having head room for multi tasking.

Plan was to have one computer for video rendering and gaming, may split that up later on. One as a desanated server for security, home intertanement, gaming, and anything else I may want. Nas of some form even if it's a full size desktop to pack all the storage drives and have room for expansion. Have regular os backups and such.
 
By "all types of cables" I assume you mean SATA3, USB3, USB-C, HDMI, Thunderlbolt etc that can push beyond today' ethernet standard of 1gb.

There are at least 2 recent threads here about the desire to do USB3 LAN beyond 1gb, and the basic answer to all these is, these other type of cables have short length limitation, not suitable for a whole-house LAN.

CAT cables, are designed for cable length required of LAN, the protocols involved are designed for it.

But no matter what LAN speed you have, as soon as you hit the Internet... BRAKE!

As already mentioned, if you have the dough for 10gbit, hey is only $$$.
 
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