M1 Mac mini's with 10Gb ethernet listed in internal repair database

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, emosun said:

Inner peace

Inner peace

Inner peace

 

14 minutes ago, emosun said:

At this point im pretty sure its just bait and I have to stop biting

 

No, but from one of the posts it sounds like you might have been a victim of a topic merge and thus context change around your post. Either way probably not a good idea to keep posting about 10Gb in ignorance of people's needs or market size of that need.

 

Apple is still going to bring out 10Gb equipment Mac Mini's at some point, even if this current rumor isn't true it's pretty well inevitable they will on a next generation SoC or a current generation but larger design. In saying that it would be using the multigigabit standard instead which supports 1/2.5/5/10 Gbps instead of just 1/10 Gbps. The multigigabit standard was designed more for this market anyway, 10Gb for a long time was far to costly and power hungry and actual 10Gbps is more than many need but above 1Gbps is very desirable to a lot of people. A lot of new motherboards are coming with 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps supporting multigigabit NIC chips now and those will soon be integrated in to the CPU like has been done in the past. Multigigabit consumer switches are rather limited in options though but they are on the market and more coming.

[leadeater]

18 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Kind of. Depends how they're marketing the product. If they've decided they'd rather have professional users go towards their other, more expensive offerings, then getting rid of the 10g connection is a way to do that. Just because you can use a product for something, doesn't mean that's how the company intended it; I could buy, for example, an entry level mountain bike and race with it, but that company would prefer I buy something higher up the tier.

Or it's just a case of a new product with a significant change using a SoC or design that meets the needs of the majority first. Just because a Mac Mini with the M1 in it now does not have a integrated 10Gb upgrade option does not mean one will not exist or Apple has no intention to do so.

 

If Apple went through the effort to support it on the Intel based Macs for years now and did not remove it before there is no reason to believe they intend to remove it now.

 

As my last post, good idea not to comment in ignorance. You're far to confident people do not need or want 10Gb, based on what? Then when people comment on the fact they do have it just writing that off, where there is one there are many.

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Which, really, with the information you've provided, sounds like the way they're going.

Mac Mini servers used for device management don't actually need 10Gb, it's just management traffic, even 100Mb would be fine. Netboot for device imaging was the only thing that really needed it, and now that's gone and Apple Profile Manager certainly doesn't need it.

 

Anyone working with large files or in a shared device environment, i.e. education, benefits greatly from having greater than 1Gbps networking capability.

[Video Beagle]

Is it still a thing to set up a bunch of mini's as a beowolf cluster?

 

Anyway. more options is always good. If people need a 10gig, they can get one, and if not, there's the 1gig.

[saltycaramel]

I like to play the motherboard SKUs multiplier game

- CPU: was 3x on 2018 Intel Minis, now it’s 1x

- RAM: was 1x on 2018 Intel Minis, now it’s 2x

- SSD: around 4x for both

- NIC: was 2x on 2018 Intel Minis, now it’s 1x (temporarily? maybe a last minute problem with the 10G motherboards?)

 

when the possibility of just using a thunderbolt3 10G NIC is available to those users needing it, one must wonder if Apple chose not to double the SKUs on this low end Mini just for the sake of a single digit percentage of users (after 2 years, they must have data about how many Mini buyers would opt for the 10G)..

[Guest]

16 hours ago, leadeater said:

Mac Mini servers used for device management don't actually need 10Gb, it's just management traffic, even 100Mb would be fine. Netboot for device imaging was the only thing that really needed it, and now that's gone and Apple Profile Manager certainly doesn't need it.

 

Anyone working with large files or in a shared device environment, i.e. education, benefits greatly from having greater than 1Gbps networking capability.

I'll add that I use 10 gig on my personal Mac mini. My entire home is 10 gig and trust me, I can saturate it.

Even the argument of it not being an average home use thing is weak. It may not be a thing right now, but how often does one replace a Mac Mini?

5 years from now, 10 gig will be more common and you'll already have it in a device that cannot be upgraded.

It was a $100 option on the 2018 mini and a no-brainer for me. It's no different in me buying my storage based on what I could use and what what I use now because that is another non-upgradeable component. Except a non-removable NIC is much less of an insufferable decision lol.

 

At the end of the day, when you purchase a computer only factoring what you're doing right this second, you're asking for swift obsolescence.

Anyway, enough preaching to the choir lol.

[Bombastinator]

This appears to be the classic b vs B problem. 10gigabit is 10/8, or 1.2 gigabyte. 

[Kisai]

On 11/20/2020 at 11:09 AM, Gymnastboatman said:

M1 Mac mini's with 10Gb ethernet listed in internal repair database 

 

 

Linus just may get his wish after all. I suspected we might have to wait for an M1X Mac mini to get 10Gb but it looks like Apple is at least considering bolting 10Gb onto the M1 somehow. Here's hoping it will come out this year. There is a rumor about some sort of "Apple surprise" in December.....

 

Sources

 https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/20/apple-m1-mac-mini-10gb-ethernet-parts-list/

 

IMO, it's possible that the initial release-day models didn't have 10G. Since you can't BYO the M1 mini, the 10G might be a "server" model like in previous models, and it probably downgrades one of the TB ports.

 

[hishnash]

46 minutes ago, Kisai said:

and it probably downgrades one of the TB ports.

Given the M1 has PCIe 4 I expect they might have enough bandwidth for the 10Gb NIC without impacting the USB-4 speeds. 

[Belgarathian]

On 11/21/2020 at 4:37 PM, emosun said:

Yeah but nobody is transfering something to a mac mini at 10gb per second. Or any pc for that matter less your sending a single jpg from two pcie ssds.

 

I mean if you really want that first 100mbs of file to look like its transfering fast before it eventually runs out of cache and starts transfering just as slowly as it normally would then sure.... 10gb then

I use 10G on the daily, both in the office and at home... between my security cameras and plex server with 1gbps internet I can saturate a 10G link.

 

At work it’s super easy, we have a bunch of engineers and graphic designers editing off a local NAS + SQL databases and local backups. 

[jasonvp]

15 hours ago, hishnash said:

Given the M1 has PCIe 4 I expect they might have enough bandwidth for the 10Gb NIC without impacting the USB-4 speeds. 

Depends on the lane count more than it does the PCI-E version.  A 2 x 10GigE card "fits" within a x8 PCI-E 2 slot.  But if you take that same card and drop it into a PCI-E 3 slot, it still needs all 8 lanes.  Even if it's not using the full bandwidth of each lane.  Now, how that translates into an onboard Ethernet controller chip: I dunno.  But generally it's more a lane count thing than it is a bandwidth/lane thing.

 

 

[thechinchinsong]

Whatever Apple chooses to do with the 10gig on the Mac mini, they certainly have a lot of room left in the chassis for additional features to be added.

[Dracarris]

On 11/21/2020 at 4:31 AM, leadeater said:

Zero people wanting or talking about 10Gb are thinking about internet use cases at all.

Well for sure not zero.. The amount of people that are connected to the internet with a > 1Gbit speed is non-neglibile anymore with FTTH spreading like wild fire, especially in private homes. The only question is if the other end will be able to deliver any service that can over-saturate a 1 Gbit link.

[Kisai]

19 hours ago, hishnash said:

Given the M1 has PCIe 4 I expect they might have enough bandwidth for the 10Gb NIC without impacting the USB-4 speeds. 

It's probably a limit of how many PCIe lanes they have. Like that would explain why there are USB-A ports and not 4 USB-C ports. Likewise, previous BYO macmini options had 1G and 10G options. Previous Macmini's also had 32GB and 64GB options as well. So I'd be willing to bet that the 10G and 32GB/64GB options require a BTO option, or might only be available for a bulk purchase since typical users don't need these options.

 

Regardless, this does show you why certain things should not be soldered to the MB.

[Jet_ski]

Don’t the M1 Macs all have WiFi 6 rated for 9.6GB? Will 10GB Ethernet be noticeably faster?

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Dracarris said:

Well for sure not zero.. The amount of people that are connected to the internet with a > 1Gbit speed is non-neglibile anymore with FTTH spreading like wild fire, especially in private homes. The only question is if the other end will be able to deliver any service that can over-saturate a 1 Gbit link.

Greater than 1Gbps is still very rare, if the FTTH service is GPON then the maximum speed is 950Mbps actual for any ISP equipment installs that are more than a year old, also doesn't mean anything new is 10GPON either.

 

I think there is some cable services that are 2Gbps or there abouts but the ISP provided gear with that is 1Gbps switched so no single device can have more than 1Gbps.

 

Here in NZ we are starting to roll out 10GPON, I forget which city is first, but again most people only have 1Gbps switches and ISP only provide 1Gbps capable switches. The people that have invested in 10Gb are those that need it locally rather than for internet access.

 

Even if we bring in business greater than 1Gbps isn't that common either. While were I work we do have 4x 100Gbps per campus and we get that bandwidth nationally (this is to connect our datacenters) our international bandwidth is 1Gbps and we don't really need more. Thing about NZ is other than Google and Netflix cache servers pretty well all internet traffic is international traffic.

[Dracarris]

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Greater than 1Gbps is still very rare, if the FTTH service is GPON then the maximum speed is 950Mbps actual for any ISP equipment installs that are more than a year old, also doesn't mean anything new is 10GPON either.

I am not sure about those details but here there are definitely providers that offer 10Gig lines that indeed deliver much higher speeds than 1Gig, the shipped router also incorporates a 4-port 10Gig switch.

 

I am no expert in fibre tech, but shouldn't GPON already offer 2.488 Gbits down and 1.244 Gbits up? Of course with TDMA they can control the allocation of the amount of bandwidth every user gets and not even 1 Gig can be supplied to all users at the same time. But lets assume a user can use almost all the bandwidth of a GPON link because all the others are just browsing a news page, why should GPON max out at 950Mbit?

 

Btw: I think I have heard of users of 1Gig lines here that basically get 1Gig spot-on when doing a speed test, both down and up.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

I am not sure about those details but here there are definitely providers that offer 10Gig lines that indeed deliver much higher speeds than 1Gig, the shipped router also incorporates a 4-port 10Gig switch.

Nice, good to hear this is changing. A lot of why in the past was the lack of consumer 10Gb switches or integrated router/switch combos with 10Gb ports.

 

3 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

I am no expert in fibre tech, but shouldn't GPON already 2.488 Gbits down and 1.244 Gbits up?

Correct but no ISP I am aware of that has GPON network provisions more than 1Gbps to a single customer, at least not residential anyway. All reference GPON configuration from the equipment providers offer a maximum of 950Mbps.

[tim0901]

24 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

Don’t the M1 Macs all have WiFi 6 rated for 9.6GB? Will 10GB Ethernet be noticeably faster?

Wi-Fi 6 has a theoretical maximum speed of 9.6Gb/s, but there's no guarantee that any device will ever actually see those sorts of speeds. That 9.6Gb/s was likely over a short distance in a lab with no interference, not in your normal office environment with dozens of people sharing the same network.

 

There's also no requirement (afaik) that the device be able to accept data at those sorts of speeds. A Wi-Fi 6 antenna in a USB2.0 port on your laptop isn't going to be able to recieve data any faster than a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) one (in ideal conditions).

[Dracarris]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Nice, good to hear this is changing. A lot of why in the past was the lack of consumer 10Gb switches or integrated router/switch combos with 10Gb ports.

This one has the webpage in English so you may want to have a look: https://fiber.salt.ch/en/home/internet

They even have some technical details there, apparently they use XGS-PON (whatever that is :D). However I have to stand corrected regarding the ethernet, it is only a single 10Gig port and 4 1Gig ports. So you can only connect a single Mac Mini without another 10 Gig switch

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

They even have some technical details there, apparently they use XGS-PON (whatever that is :D)

That's 10GPON, it goes by both names.

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

Don’t the M1 Macs all have WiFi 6 rated for 9.6GB? Will 10GB Ethernet be noticeably faster?

Wifi speed ratings are a mess. At the end of the day, WiFi 6 is still half-duplex.

Not getting anywhere near that 9.6Gb in real world use. (note the b: GB is gigabytes vs Gb being gigabit huge difference).

[saltycaramel]

1 hour ago, Jet_ski said:

Don’t the M1 Macs all have WiFi 6 rated for 9.6GB? Will 10GB Ethernet be noticeably faster?

 

All 3 M1 Macs are 2x2 Wifi 6 designs that will do 1.2Gbps with 80MHz channels.

 

The “M1X” Macs (14” and 16” MBP next spring) will probably be 3x3 designs (like the current high end Macbook Pros), with a theoretical speed of 1.8Gbps.

 

The all new iMac could be 3x3 (1.8Gbps) or if we are lucky be upgraded to 4x4 (2.4Gbps).

 

All of these are a far cry from 10Gbps wired full duplex. (but one just needs to buy a Thunderbolt to 10G dongle to solve this)

[jasonvp]

2 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

 

(but one just needs to buy a Thunderbolt to 10G dongle to solve this)

And those suckers work insanely well, too.  I have one for my 15" work MBP, and can get the full 10Gbits/sec through it with iperf.

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

 

All 3 M1 Macs are 2x2 Wifi 6 designs that will do 1.2Gbps with 80MHz channels.

 

The “M1X” Macs (14” and 16” MBP next spring) will probably be 3x3 designs (like the current high end Macbook Pros), with a theoretical speed of 1.8Gbps.

 

The all new iMac could be 3x3 (1.8Gbps) or if we are lucky be upgraded to 4x4 (2.4Gbps).

 

All of these are a far cry from 10Gbps wired full duplex. (but one just needs to buy a Thunderbolt to 10G dongle to solve this)

Egpu not working makes me wonder what else might not work though.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Bombastinator