10 gigabit connection help

[Falco5150]

I'm trying to find the easiest/ cheapest way to get a 10 gig connection from my gaming pc (in my room) to my server which is located in my garage (~160 ft cable run). so I can remove the hdd from my pc and make it quieter/ have a fast external backup.

 

my current network setup.

modem> nighthawk X6S router> server

all wired. gaming pc is hooked up to wifi.

 

I plan on running a length of cat6a from my room to my garage so I can have a wired connection for gaming. and I'd like to put a network switch in my room to hardwire a couple other devices (the others don't need to be 10 gig)

 

since I already planned on doing this I figured I should see if it's possible to get a 10 gig connection between the 2 machines.

 

Option #1

would it be possible to just run a cable directly between my gaming pc and server if I put a 10gig pcie card in each one so I could transfer data between the 2 like that, and also use a hdd in the server as a direct storage device? and then run a second cable from the router to my gaming pc for internet? I think this would be the cheapest route if it could work like that.

 if I go with 2 cables #1 would be 10gig pc to server. #2 would be router to switch to pc and other devices.

Would this be possible?

 

Option #2

or do I need a 10gig switch at both ends?

so it would go, modem>10gig switch> router, server, 10 gig switch in room. then the 10gig switch in my room would branch off to my pc/other devices. meaning I'd only have to run a single cable.

 

if I have to go with the second option I can see it being a bit cost prohibitive since 10 gig switches are still pretty expensive. having to buy 2 10gig pcie cards is already stretching my budget a bit.

 

if the first option is possible (which I really hope it is) please let me know, and let me know what kind of complications I may run into. or if there is a better way to do this that I'm missing please let me know. the only thing that I really want a 10 gigabit connection to is from my pc to server, gigabit is fine for everything else.

 

question #2

would having multiple devices running on a single cable increase latency while gaming? if so, I'll run a dedicated cable from my pc to router, and another from the router to a switch in my room for everything else. I want the best/ fastest/ lowest latency setup I can afford.

 

thanks in advance for any help. it's greatly appreciated!

[r4tch3t]

24 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

I'm trying to find the easiest/ cheapest way to get a 10 gig connection from my gaming pc (in my room) to my server which is located in my garage (~160 ft cable run). so I can remove the hdd from my pc and make it quieter/ have a fast external backup.

 

my current network setup.

modem> nighthawk X6S router> server

all wired. gaming pc is hooked up to wifi.

 

I plan on running a length of cat6a from my room to my garage so I can have a wired connection for gaming. and I'd like to put a network switch in my room to hardwire a couple other devices (the others don't need to be 10 gig)

 

since I already planned on doing this I figured I should see if it's possible to get a 10 gig connection between the 2 machines.

 

Option #1

would it be possible to just run a cable directly between my gaming pc and server if I put a 10gig pcie card in each one so I could transfer data between the 2 like that, and also use a hdd in the server as a direct storage device? and then run a second cable from the router to my gaming pc for internet? I think this would be the cheapest route if it could work like that.

 if I go with 2 cables #1 would be 10gig pc to server. #2 would be router to switch to pc and other devices.

Would this be possible?

 

Option #2

or do I need a 10gig switch at both ends?

so it would go, modem>10gig switch> router, server, 10 gig switch in room. then the 10gig switch in my room would branch off to my pc/other devices. meaning I'd only have to run a single cable.

 

if I have to go with the second option I can see it being a bit cost prohibitive since 10 gig switches are still pretty expensive. having to buy 2 10gig pcie cards is already stretching my budget a bit.

 

if the first option is possible (which I really hope it is) please let me know, and let me know what kind of complications I may run into. or if there is a better way to do this that I'm missing please let me know. the only thing that I really want a 10 gigabit connection to is from my pc to server, gigabit is fine for everything else.

 

question #2

would having multiple devices running on a single cable increase latency while gaming? if so, I'll run a dedicated cable from my pc to router, and another from the router to a switch in my room for everything else. I want the best/ fastest/ lowest latency setup I can afford.

 

thanks in advance for any help. it's greatly appreciated!

Do it in 2 stages. Run the 10 gig cable to the server and one to the router for Internet. Then when you had more funds again get a 10 gigabit switch with 2+ ports. PC and server connected to switch, switch connected to router for Internet.

Is also suggest having a second cable for the server (gigabit) if others want to use the server aswell. Otherwise it would need to be accessed through your pc if that's the only cable to the server.

Hope that made sense. 

[Falco5150]

4 minutes ago, r4tch3t said:

Do it in 2 stages. Run the 10 gig cable to the server and one to the router for Internet. Then when you had more funds again get a 10 gigabit switch with 2+ ports. PC and server connected to switch, switch connected to router for Internet.

Is also suggest having a second cable for the server (gigabit) if others want to use the server aswell. Otherwise it would need to be accessed through your pc if that's the only cable to the server.

Hope that made sense. 

not really. 

but it sounds like you're saying option 1 would not work? even if my pc and server had both the gigabit connection on their mobos for internet then were directly wired to each other through 10gig pcie cards in each.

 

the more I think about this the more confused I get.

 

the server needs to have internet and be accessible on the network through a gigabit connection. that part is easy. the only thing that needs to be 10gig is my gaming pc to server.

 

im gonna be running all the cables tomorrow so I gotta figure out what cables I need to run tonight. (don't need all the parts for my end goal right now, but I at least have to run all the cables for it)

[Windows7ge]

47 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

would it be possible to just run a cable directly between my gaming pc and server if I put a 10gig pcie card in each one so I could transfer data between the 2 like that, and also use a hdd in the server as a direct storage device? and then run a second cable from the router to my gaming pc for internet? I think this would be the cheapest route if it could work like that.

This will work. The only issue you may run into is if you have an existing connection to the server over the 1Gbit network. That would give you two possible paths to the server and Windows doesn't always pick the faster of the two on it's own. This can be fixed though.

 

47 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

or do I need a 10gig switch at both ends?

Not necessary.

Edit: I misread this one. There's few reasons to install a switch in between the modem and the router. Unless you have multiple public IP's and you're doing some type of server hosting then that switch doesn't need to be there.

 

47 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

2 10gig pcie cards is already stretching my budget a bit.

If you look into SFP+ NICs and fiberoptics instead of 10G RJ-45 it can significantly reduce the cost for P2P connections. Switches with SFP+ ports can be expensive though.

 

47 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

would having multiple devices running on a single cable increase latency while gaming?

I think you mean if you have 1 cable going to a switch that feeds all of your rooms devices.

1 switch between you and your router should show up as <1ms. 2 switches would be negligible. Unless you are saturating the bandwidth of that line like with a mass of file transfers then the ping on that line should remain <1ms. So don't worry about it.

[mynameisjuan]

45 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

Option #1

would it be possible to just run a cable directly between my gaming pc and server if I put a 10gig pcie card in each one so I could transfer data between the 2 like that, and also use a hdd in the server as a direct storage device? and then run a second cable from the router to my gaming pc for internet? I think this would be the cheapest route if it could work like that.

 if I go with 2 cables #1 would be 10gig pc to server. #2 would be router to switch to pc and other devices.

Would this be possible?

Definitely possible. Also note that if you are under 30m or so you can still use 10gig over CAT5e to save some money

 

But if you need internet access to the server its would be harder to setup. 

 

49 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

Option #2

or do I need a 10gig switch at both ends?

so it would go, modem>10gig switch> router, server, 10 gig switch in room. then the 10gig switch in my room would branch off to my pc/other devices. meaning I'd only have to run a single cable.

You dont need two switches but if you are able to squeeze $199 out of your budget you can get a netgear switch with 2 10gig copper ports which you could plug both your server and PC into to get 10gig and use the other gig ports to connect to your router. 

 

 

54 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

question #2

would having multiple devices running on a single cable increase latency while gaming? if so, I'll run a dedicated cable from my pc to router, and another from the router to a switch in my room for everything else. I want the best/ fastest/ lowest latency setup I can afford.

Unmeasurable difference really. 

 

[Falco5150]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

This will work. The only issue you may run into is if you have an existing connection to the server over the 1Gbit network. That would give you two possible paths to the server and Windows doesn't always pick the faster of the two on it's own. This can be fixed though.

How would this be fixed? and would other devices on my network such as wifi devices be able to access the server?

 

7 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If you look into SFP+ NICs and fiberoptics instead of 10G RJ-45 it can significantly reduce the cost for P2P connections. Switches with SFP+ ports can be expensive though.

I would like to just stick with rj45 to keep things simple. plus I already have all the cable.

 

11 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I think you mean if you have 1 cable going to a switch that feeds all of your rooms devices.

1 switch between you and your router should show up as <1ms. 2 switches would be negligible. Unless you are saturating the bandwidth of that line like with a mass of file transfers then the ping on that line should remain <1ms. So don't worry about it.

that puts my mind at ease and will make things easier.

so I will just be running 2 cables then and my network would look like this?

 

1gig

modem> router> server, switch in room connecting pc/other devices for internet.

 

cable run #1 being from the router to the switch in my room for internet.

 

10gig

cable run #2 

pcie card in server to pcie card in pc.

 

is that correct?

[Falco5150]

5 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Definitely possible. Also note that if you are under 30m or so you can still use 10gig over CAT5e to save some money

 

But if you need internet access to the server its would be harder to setup. 

How would I set this up without the netgear switch? the server does need internet.

I use it for security cameras, plex, and as a backup. and would like to have a faster connection so I can completely remove the mech hdd from my pc.

 

getting the netgear switch is a bit out of my budget for now seeing as I still have to buy 2 10gig pcie cards.

[mynameisjuan]

9 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

How would I set this up without the netgear switch? the server does need internet.

I use it for security cameras, plex, and as a backup. and would like to have a faster connection so I can completely remove the mech hdd from my pc.

 

getting the netgear switch is a bit out of my budget for now seeing as I still have to buy 2 10gig pcie cards.

So it sounds like you are buying 10gig NICs for the server and PC so what you could do with the other gig ports:

 

Gig ports:

PC-----> router

Server --->router

 

Leave both as DHCP on THAT specific interface

 

10gig ports:

PC--->Server

 

PC:

IP: 10.0.0.1

Netmask: 255.255.255.252

Gateway: none (*windows sometimes needs it or it freaks the hell out)

 

Server:

IP: 10.0.0.2

Netmask: 255.255.255.252

Gateway: none (*windows sometimes needs it or it freaks the hell out)

 

So this will let your server and PC reach the internet while having a PTP with each other to talk directly. 

[Falco5150]

9 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

So it sounds like you are buying 10gig NICs for the server and PC so what you could do with the other gig ports:

 

Gig ports:

PC-----> router

Server --->router

 

Leave both as DHCP on THAT specific interface

 

10gig ports:

PC--->Server

 

PC:

IP: 10.0.0.1

Netmask: 255.255.255.252

Gateway: none (*windows sometimes needs it or it freaks the hell out)

 

Server:

IP: 10.0.0.2

Netmask: 255.255.255.252

Gateway: none (*windows sometimes needs it or it freaks the hell out)

 

So this will let your server and PC reach the internet while having a PTP with each other to talk directly. 

awesome thanks. sounds pretty simple.

 

so  would this allow my server to be accessible over wifi still? if so I think this is what I'm gonna do.

[mynameisjuan]

4 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

awesome thanks. sounds pretty simple.

 

so  would this allow my server to be accessible over wifi still? if so I think this is what I'm gonna do.

Yep it will. Essentially everything will continue to work the way it does now. You dont even have to unplug your server or PC. Just put the NICs in, run the cable and enter the statics and boom, done.

[Falco5150]

5 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Yep it will. Essentially everything will continue to work the way it does now. You dont even have to unplug your server or PC. Just put the NICs in, run the cable and enter the statics and boom, done.

awesome. thanks again. I really appreciate the help.

[beersykins]

What are you going to use to share the HDD?  Samba/Windows Share?  I'd use iSCSI or something.

 

What HDD is it?  Most of them don't xfer much faster than gigabit (~125 MB/sec) but you would benefit from contents cached in server RAM.

[Falco5150]

10 minutes ago, beersykins said:

What are you going to use to share the HDD?  Samba/Windows Share?  I'd use iSCSI or something.

 

What HDD is it?  Most of them don't xfer much faster than gigabit (~125 MB/sec) but you would benefit from contents cached in server RAM.

not sure. I haven't thought that far ahead yet. I mainly just needed to know how to set the network up so I could do the wiring.

 I'll check out iscsi though. thanks for the recommendation.

 

when I remove the hdd from my pc into the server I plan on adding another in raid for faster transfers. plus I'd like to have things a bit future proofed. I don't want to have to run  cables again later. it's already gonna be a pain in the ass. 

 

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

You dont need two switches but if you are able to squeeze $199 out of your budget you can get a netgear switch with 2 10gig copper ports which you could plug both your server and PC into to get 10gig and use the other gig ports to connect to your router. 

I think this is a better option for small deployment 10Gb now, $150!

 

https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in

[shinegull]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I think this is a better option for small deployment 10Gb now, $150!

 

https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in 

Aren't those mikrotik switches on backorder? I'm trying to find in canada, but seem to be having quite a bit if trouble

[mariushm]

Craft Computing recently did a review of that router/switch from Microtik:

 

 

The bottom of description has links to it (but the store linked in description expects to receive stock on the 15th of March) and also links to fiber cables and SFC+ modules and everything mentioned in the video .

100 meters (328ft) of fiber is not that expensive, at 55$ : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DP6N6WF?th=1

40m (130ft) is around 45$, if you can reduce your distance then this could be an option.

Network cards can be cheap, you can buy a pair for 40-50$.

 

The alternative is going with two regular 10gbps cards and cat6a cable between the computers (you don't need a switch to make it work).. you can buy the cards for 90$ each new : https://www.amazon.com/Aquantia-NIC-5-speed-Ethernet-Network/dp/B07C5VLVFF?th=1

You can buy older or used cards on eBay cheaper.

 

[Windows7ge]

11 hours ago, Falco5150 said:

 I'll check out iscsi though

From personal experience iSCSI could help or hurt the performance. It all depends on the setup.

If you want to be able to access data on this array from a remote location, on the Wi-Fi, or another PC do not use iSCSI.

The way iSCSI works once setup is it shows up on your PC as if it is a directly connected drive. On the server-side this does not allow other clients to see or access the data so SSH/SFTP won't work to access those files, SMB won't let you access the files either for other clients so I don't recommend it unless you really have to.

[mynameisjuan]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

I think this is a better option for small deployment 10Gb now, $150!

 

https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in

Oh no doubt but for this use case a set and forget netgear is a little more user friendly!

[Falco5150]

7 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

From personal experience iSCSI could help or hurt the performance. It all depends on the setup.

If you want to be able to access data on this array from a remote location, on the Wi-Fi, or another PC do not use iSCSI.

The way iSCSI works once setup is it shows up on your PC as if it is a directly connected drive. On the server-side this does not allow other clients to see or access the data so SSH/SFTP won't work to access those files, SMB won't let you access the files either for other clients so I don't recommend it unless you really have to.

that's actually a good thing in my case.

is it possible to set one hdd in the server like that to where my pc will recognise sorta as an internal hdd? but still allow open access to the rest of the server?

 

I'm the only person that needs access to the server, but I'd still like to be able to access most of it from other devices.

 

idk if you can tell or not, but I hardly know anything about networking

[Windows7ge]

12 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

is it possible to set one hdd in the server like that to where my pc will recognise sorta as an internal hdd? but still allow open access to the rest of the server?

 

I'm the only person that needs access to the server, but I'd still like to be able to access most of it from other devices.

If you just use SMB you can map a network folder to a drive letter. It shows up in it's own category under My Computer (This PC) and it will show you the available space but there's limitations to how you can manipulate it compared to iSCSI. Though you really don't need the level of control iSCSI would offer.

 

16 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

idk if you can tell or not, but I hardly know anything about networking

And you're already playing with 10Gbit, I respect that.

[Falco5150]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If you just use SMB you can map a network folder to a drive letter. It shows up in it's own category under My Computer (This PC) and it will show you the available space but there's limitations to how you can manipulate it compared to iSCSI. Though you really don't need the level of control iSCSI would offer.

cool thanks. I'll have to check those programs out when I get a chance and really read about the features.

 

5 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

And you're already playing with 10Gbit, I respect that.

I know quite a bit about hardware, but this is my first real networking project and I'm trying to plan it out right while taking future needs/use cases/wants into consideration so I only have to run the cabling once.

 

I really appreciate the help from everybody here, you guys are great! and I'm sure I'll be posting again once it's time to actually set up the network.

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, Falco5150 said:

cool thanks. I'll have to check those programs out when I get a chance and really read about the features.

For future reference SMB & iSCSI aren't programs. They're network file sharing protocols.

 

I can see other people already told you how to setup the interfaces. If you run into any trouble you can quote or tag someone here.

[Falco5150]

@Windows7ge

 

do you have any suggestions for 10gig pcie cards?

 

and I've been looking at switches for my room to connect all the devices I want to my router. I'm not really sure about the difference between managed and unmanaged switches. this is the one I was looking at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008ABLU2I

 

it says it has qos which I think means I can use that feature to prioritise traffic from my room from my pc to router? not 100% sure though. do you know of one that offers some features that would be useful? or would this one be ok?

[Windows7ge]

21 minutes ago, Falco5150 said:

do you have any suggestions for 10gig pcie cards?

For ethernet, I have no real go-to. The Intel X540 is pretty popular but prepare to crack open your wallet.

 

Personally I got into SFP+ because Mellanox ConnectX2 cards could be had for $25/piece and the cable & transceivers was around $50. A long time ago I think I made a topic about this. 10Gbit for <$100.

 

Quote

and I've been looking at switches for my room to connect all the devices I want to my router. I'm not really sure about the difference between managed and unmanaged switches. this is the one I was looking at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008ABLU2I

 

it says it has qos which I think means I can use that feature to prioritise traffic from my room from my pc to router? not 100% sure though. do you know of one that offers some features that would be useful? or would this one be ok?

QoS basically means what you said. However your network utilization most likely won't warrant needing it. For switches I'm more partial to Ubiquiti and managed vs unmanaged, managed just allows you a lot more control over network access, it lets you configure the switch.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On 1/6/2019 at 6:49 PM, mynameisjuan said:

Oh no doubt but for this use case a set and forget netgear is a little more user friendly!

I recently bought the Netgear GS110EMX and ASUS XG-C100C, so that when saturating the Gigabit on my main PC to the NAS it doesn't hinder other devices communicating with the NAS.

 

Worth noting, I had to enable Flow Control on the switch ports to make it work as otherwise 10Gig to 1Gig was causing a ton of dropped packets and slower performance than 1Gig to 1Gig used to be. I'm not sure that would be an option with an unmanaged switch so I'd definitely go Smart Managed.

 

With it enabled I'm getting faster average speeds than 1Gig to 1Gig used to do. Most HDDs will do over a Gigabit and modern larger HDDs can reach around 200MB/s, confirmed when I also upgraded my NAS to 10TB Ironwolf HDDs, so its definitely a benefit even without RAID. (I avoid RAID as I prefer that if a HDD fails everything NOT on that HDD still works and I just copy everything from the backup rather than mess around with restoring the RAID)

 

I don't think its a good idea to do away with the HDD in your client PC though as I believe network transfers use more CPU power than plain SATA, so you could run into performance issues.  That said, I sadly don't have the luxury of 10Gig in my client as its an ITX build with nowhere to put a 10Gig NIC so cannot test that theory unless I find an ITX z390 board with 10Gig (haven't seen one so far).