Some time ago I purchased UGREEN CM312 adapter and it’s utter sh*t. Like it’s beyond catastrophically sh*t. I’m getting kernel panics on daily basis and interface hanging completely is just normal thing that happens every once a while, few times a day (requires reboot since unplugging dongle results in kernel panic). It’s especially apparent when interface is under heavier load (eg. during backups) so basically when it’s used for it’s sole purpose of speeding up large data transfers comparing to gigabit. Crashes and hangs are very common and happen basically after few minutes of load (like low few - 2-5 min)
I tried connecting it in many ways - directly to laptop, over docking station, using usb-c → usb-a adapter and it’s always the same story. Since it’s so terribly bad I decided that maybe it’d be good idea to get something better than cheapest 5G dongle available on the market that apparently is EOL for few years already. However before putting down another 80$ I decided it’s maybe good idea to ask someone about their experience first.
QNA-UC5G1T seems to be the most popular 5Gbe adapter based on Aquantia since all other models seem to be EOL and phased out so… Does anyone use it?
If you use it under Windows then it’s also representative because my UGREEN dongle also crashes under windows in a way that it hangs completely and Windows is unable to reset device up to point I can’t even shutdown my computer as long as this dongle is connected…
Unfortunately it’s Ryzen Pro 5000 based laptop (Lenovo P14s Gen 2) and as such it has no USB 4 nor TB3/4 so 5G Aquantia is best I can do
My final plan was to purchase two of those and bond them in bond-rr so I could get somewhere around 700-800ish MB/s (single Aquantia usb dongle reaches around 380 MB/s with NFSv4 for those few minutes before it crashes with kernel panic).
However stability issues are so severe that it’s realistically unusable, especially since I’m using btrfs filesystem which well… doesn’t really like unclean shutdowns… So using this dongle poses real data loss hazard. I mean it’s not like I expect it to be rock solid zero flaps, but the way it currently fails is quite… offensive and potentially catastrophic xD
All my stationary machines (servers and workstations) use Intel X710-DA2 and X710-DA4 NICs
I have personally used the Sabrent version of their 5GbE dongle. I have mixed feelings about them as a brand, but for the adapter it has worked when I need it to and it is $30 cheaper than the QNAP.
I know it is Aquantia but I don’t remember which version.
I can’t link it but if you search “Sabrent 5GbE USB” you should find it or search “B08977K9D2” and it should be the only result.
