Need advice on how to setup 10gb networking in my home.

[BenKrapohl]

Hey yall, I have a few questions that I thought the community might be able to help me with.

 

Little background info before I get into the advice, I do video production for a media company and often bring home some work with me. I currently have a gaming/editing PC that runs great, and about 6 months ago I built out of some old spare parts a storage NAS, also runs great and I have 0 issues with it at all. So the bottleneck I have comes down to networking speeds from the limited Cat 5a cables and the router/switch.

 

Ive included an astounding art piece I made in paint to give you an idea of how my current setup works. My current setup is my modem and router that are both just basic Rj-45 1Gb which of course limits my network speeds to just 1Gb. Might not be a major problem most of the time but if im working on a project or importing stuff to the server I run into bandwidth issues on my cables because they wont push past 1Gb connection at all. Great example is I will try to download something, then at the same time try to transfer a file from the server to my PC and I get limited to half a Gb on both. Not ideal. 

My goal is to keep my current modem, and router/switch combo because there are other things in my setup that dont require a faster connection that they both work fine on. (Xbox, TV ect.)

 

The way I believe it should work from what ive learned is as follows. (Second diagram included) 

1. Buy a switch similar to this https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-Desktop-Gigabit-Ethernet-CRS305-1G-4S/dp/B07HYKQFWD/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1549074876&sr=8-1&keywords=CRS305-1G-4S+IN&linkCode=sl1&tag=craftcomputin-20&linkId=ce8a158ef1ece6763cf13df7225081e6&language=en_US    and plug it into just a normal ethernet port on my primary router for internet access.

2. Buy SPF+ network cards for both the Server and the PC and plug in the PC and nas to the 10Gb switch. 

 

From what it sounds like that should be all it needs to work but I know im missing something somewhere or I just dont know it. Thats why im here asking. Would love advice/thoughts from the community because I frankly dont know alot about it and id rather ensure that I dont spend a few hundred dollars on some solution that might not even work. 

 

Thanks for any and all feedback and hope to chat with you all below. 

[AbydosOne]

21 minutes ago, BenKrapohl said:

Thanks for any and all feedback and hope to chat with you all below. 

If you don't intend to have any other 10G devices, I would recommend just directly connecting the NAS and the desktop with 10G instead of running it through a switch. You can set the hosts file in Windows to only route traffic to the NAS via the 10G interface IP. Use the existing Ethernet for larger network access.

 

(This is what I do between my NAS and desktop and it works great)

[BenKrapohl]

3 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

If you don't intend to have any other 10G devices, I would recommend just directly connecting the NAS and the desktop with 10G instead of running it through a switch. You can set the hosts file in Windows to only route traffic to the NAS via the 10G interface IP. Use the existing Ethernet for larger network access.

 

(This is what I do between my NAS and desktop and it works great)

I did actually consider doing something like that, But I would rather be future proofed incase I decide to add something to the system. 

[Falcon1986]

@BenKrapohl

 

Your proposed setup should work fine.

 

As for the cable link between the Mikrotik switch and the PC/NAS, look into SFP+ DAC cables if distance between devices is short.

 

Also, keep in mind that this Mikrotik switch is passively cooled. Once you start utilizing more ports, heat may become an issue so active cooling will be required for stability.

 

All the best!

[CerealExperimentsLain]

If you want to do this for less and you intend to *only* connect your workstation to your NAS, you can cheat it and just directly connect the PC and NAS.

 

 

This of course assumes you can fit two NICs in your NAS.  But this is what I'm doing in my home as copper 10gig switches are expensive and I really only needed the fast connection to my desktop.  I added an Aquantia 10gig NIC to both desktop and server, ran a CAT6A cable between them, and configured them both to 192.168.10.X where the 1gig network is 192.168.1.X.  I kept their last set of numbers identical so it was easy to mentally keep track of.  Both machines maintain their normal 1gig connection to the remainder of the network.  This means that once 10 gig copper switches cost under CAD$700, I can simply replace my 1gig and plug both server and NAS into that along with everything else.

 

 

[LAwLz]

I would also recommend the direct attach setup. In this case it literally only has benefits and no drawbacks. Much cheaper and you still get the same speed, without having to introduce another device to the network. 

I don't buy the whole "I want it for future proofing" argument either because if you need more connections in the future then you can buy a switch when you need it. Why buy something now because you might need it later? It's not like the direct attach method requires you to buy any hardware that would be wasted if you bought the switch. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I would also recommend the direct attach setup. In this case it literally only has benefits and no drawbacks. Much cheaper and you still get the same speed, without having to introduce another device to the network. 

I don't buy the whole "I want it for future proofing" argument either because if you need more connections in the future then you can buy a switch when you need it. Why buy something now because you might need it later? It's not like the direct attach method requires you to buy any hardware that would be wasted if you bought the switch. 

Yup, in my situation even the long cable I bought would be part of a 10gig switched setup.  My desktop is on the desk where I also have pfsense and my main 1gig switch.  So any 10gig switch would be dropped in as a replacement there.  Every part I've bought already will continue on.  But the Netgear 10gig switch I've eyeballed is over CAD$700 and I can't justify it whe, only two devices have NICs faster than 1gig.  But one day those will be affordable and easier to justify.

 

Def hard to argue a 10 gigabit PCIE x4 3.0 NIC is not 'future proof'.