I am updating my NAS to 12th Gen Intel, and the MB I went with has 10gbe - my long-term plan was to update my home cabling at some point (probably when I get fibre from the ISP).
However, I had the thought that my Router, an AX6000, has a 10gbe port - and WiFi 6.
So, if I am on the WiFi, connected to the NAS, and given that performance will never reach the theoretical maximum - would I be able to utilise the 10gbe or will it be just the normal 1gbe standards?
The drives are all NAS Toshiba 14tb drives and there are 7 of them, there is 64gb of RAM in there, not sure how much that will help with speeds, there is an SD but it is running the OS (TrueNAS)
My desktop also has a 10gbe port - and WiFi 6 is enabled on it (It is the X570 Pro Creator board) so was hoping to be able to pass files back and forth with increased speed over the WiFi if I can get a strong enough signal - which I think I can.
I will find out in a few days, but if I know it “should” work, then at least I know to troubleshoot if it doesn’t work…rather than spending hours troubleshooting something that was never going to work in the first place…
As I mentioned, my long-term plan was to update the cabling in the house, and then get a 10gb switch, but seemed pointless with a 40mb internet connection currently - so was waiting for fibre.
My thought was, wouldn’t the NAS plug straight into the 10gbe on the router?
Then the router would distribute that data on the WiFi which is WiFi 6, with a theoretical 9.5gbps? - not that my NAS could work that fast - but I should get the maximum performance from the drives.
Or would plugging the NAS directly into the 10gbe port on the Router not work in the way I am describing?
Not sure if I can post a link, but this is the router (if it lets me)
The part I was reading was this bit:
Capture ISP advertised speeds or use your own 10G LAN network between PCs and NAS
I was just wondering whether that would apply to the WiFi - which is stated at 4.8gbps - which would be about 4 times faster what I have now.
I don’t think it’s going to cost you anything to try, but if you’re expecting wifi 6 to be faster than gigabit you’re likely to be disappointed.
Only the best devices in the best conditions are capable of that, and even then they are half-duplex so although they might be able to download faster than gigabit, they can’t also upload at the same time without it deducting from the download speed, for example. I would always choose a gigabit wired connection ahead of a wifi 6 connection.
I’m a bit confused as to which router you have in any case? There seems to be one ax6000 that has a single 2.5gb port, and another that has two 10gb ports…
Their naming convention is pretty poor - they are all called AX6000 - but my specific model is the RT-AX89X which has two 10gbe ports (one Base-T and SFP+ port)
I have no idea if it will work, just an idea that popped into my head, since the MB i was getting had 10gbe port on it too.
I will give it a test (though MB not arriving til 8 November).
I will report back on how it goes good or bad - and look a little more at getting 10gb cabling sorted.
In any case, you don’t need to upgrade the wiring to try 10Gbps — if the distances are small you might get lucky with old cabling and devices might negotiate 2.5Gbps /5Gbps /10Gbps anyways.
There are also SFP+ <-> RJ45 adapters out there that might be of use to you.
Ah, you said you had an AX6000 and I thought that meant you had an Archer AX6000. You have an Asus RT-AX89X with “AX6000 capability” which is marketing BS. That is why I thought you didnt have a 10gbe port on your router at all. lol
So yes, with that router you will have a 10gb connection from your NAS to the router. Your router has a single 10gbe RJ45 port, but also has a 10gb SFP+ port. So theoretically you could get a 10gb SFP+ NIC in your PC (or, does your NAS use that port?) and connect your PC and NAS via wired 10 gigabit network with just your router and no extra switch needed. This would let your PC write to your NAS’s RAM cache at around 1GB/s, or read from a cached file at that speed between them.
The 5GHz wifi 6 band is your fastest with a theoretical max speed of 4.8gbit/s, but in reality will most likely not exceed 1.5gbit on your best devices and probably only 1gbit or less on your typical phone’s 2x2 connection. The 4.8gbit wifi speed is based on an 8 stream connection, which I have never actually seen any device have. Not even high end PCIE network cards for PCs. The most I have seen on the highest end cards are 4x4, which right there limits you to half your theoretical maximum wifi throughput, then the real world limits things further (RF interference, walls, etc). So ID expect about 150MB/s max over wifi from your NAS
I did a little testing with iPerf3 and I got some really interesting results.
With my Desktop plugged in using Ethernet over Power - a plug that goes in the wall and sends your internet through your electricity cabling - supposedly rated to 2.5gbps, (EoP) from now on.
I had my NAS and my Desktop going directly into my ISP’s Router and that going to EoP, with the Asus also plugged into the ISP Router.
I was getting on average over 10 tests: 90.09 MBits / Sec using the Ethernet cable and EoP.
I switched it over to WiFi including unplugging the cable on my desktop.
I was getting on average over 10 tests: 279.1 MBits / Sec
3x increase in speed using the WiFi.
I am still only on a 1gbe port on the NAS, but when I plugged the NAS directly into the Asus Router - it dropped back to EoP levels (roughly 90 MBits /Sec).
So while I think the WiFi idea works, I am not so sure about the whole 10gbe into the Router actually improving anything - but time will tell - at least I have some pre-change of set up test results to compare after I make the change.
The RT-AX89X’s two 10Gb/s ports are shared, you can only use one at a time.
And I think it is meant to be the uplink to another switch, so that if several Wifi 6 clients access at the same time there is enough bandwidth available.
I don’t think that is quite right Janos, what it doesn’t support is link aggregation so you can’t use both at the same time to get 20gbps, but you can use both at the same time, either as 2 LAN or 1 WAN, 1 LAN - this is likely what you meant, but want to clarify.
TrueNAS didn’t recognise the LAN port on my new MB - so bit of a delay in being able to run any tests.
There is a review on hwcooling which has the following:
“Once you use both 10 Gbps connectors – RJ45 and SFP+ to connect the client and server in any order, you get values somewhere between 4–5 Gbps in both directions, which is a really big jump compared to the other two routers.”
There is also a review here:
That has the following:
"In terms of usage roles, here are how the RT-AX89X’s two 10Gbps ports work:
Both as LAN ports (default). In this case, they don’t support LAN Link Aggregation — you can’t combine them into a single 20Gbps connection.
Both as WAN ports. In this case, they don’t support WAN Link Aggregation but can work as Dual-WAN, where each connects to a different service provider.
One as a WAN port, and the other as a LAN port."
And I haven’t seen anywhere else talk about those ports in terms of only one being used at a time.
There is also a video here:
Of a guy who hooks up the RJ45 to WAN and the SFP+ to LAN and does a test to see how it works. So it does appear that both can work together, but not link aggregated.
