Questions about Switches, 2.5Gb Bandwidth, and My New NAS

[Shadow10499]

I currently have a 2.5Gb router and modem. That is to say that one connection out on my router is 2.5Gb, and the other 3 are 1Gb. If I were to run from the 2.5Gb port on my router to a 2.5Gb switch, and from there connect my 3 PCs and NAS to said switch, would they all get the full 2.5Gb bandwidth to my NAS? (All ports on the switch are 2.5Gb)

 

The NAS is going to be four Seagate EXOS 14TB in RAID 10. Not sure if I need an SSD cache for them yet, as they will only have 2.5Gb of bandwidth max and aside from randoms that should be close to saturated by my RAID 10 (I think). Please do correct me if I'm wrong about this. I was also having trouble finding data on this topic, but I think this is correct based on the info I did find.

 

This is all new to me. I have never had enough bandwidth or internet speed for it to matter before. I have also never had a NAS, only local storage of a 4TB SSD and 4TB HDD as a backup for my media. We just bought a house and went from 15Mb internet at my parents to 1Gb and 2.5Gb gear.

 

Feel free to call me dumb, I just want to learn exactly how this works and it's hard to Google stuff like this. There are a lot of basic beginner guides, and a lot of hardcore niche stuff, but I haven't found much about how exactly bandwidth is split. I really feel like all my questions are just so obvious that not many people have asked before. Maybe I'm just having trouble finding the needle in the haystack article amongst all the very basic guides.

 

Any help / answers about how 2.5Gb bandwidth, or about whether I should have a cache for that RAID 10 is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

P.S. I realize some people may tell me this is probably over my head and I shouldn't be doing this since I don't know what I'm doing yet. We really do need a NAS for backups and as a media storage for Plex. It doesn't need to be super fast like a Steam cache, but having that ability in the future would be nice. I kind of have to figure this all out one way or another. It would be nice to have some answers before I have to just order gear and figure it out through trial and error like with my first PC build. Thanks again!

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Shadow10499 said:

I currently have a 2.5Gb router and modem. That is to say that one connection out on my router is 2.5Gb, and the other 3 are 1Gb. If I were to run from the 2.5Gb port on my router to a 2.5Gb switch, and from there connect my 3 PCs and NAS to said switch, would they all get the full 2.5Gb bandwidth to my NAS? (All ports on the switch are 2.5Gb)

Yes, that's how it works, well if all three PCs have 2.5Gbit NICs of course.

[Shadow10499]

8 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Yes, that's how it works, well if all three PCs have 2.5Gbit NICs of course.

Thanks so much! 

[mariushm]

You could do that, but I'm not sure it's worth investing money in 2.5g switches.

 

With just 3 pcs personally I'd get a 10gbps switch : https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-CRS305-1G-4S-Gigabit-Ethernet-RouterOS/dp/B07LFKGP1L/  and 4 10g cards to put in each computer and nas.

The router has 4 10g ports and 1 gbps port - the switch can be connected to the router through the 1gbps connection and the 4 ports can be used by the nas and 3 pcs. 

 

another option is the tplink 8x10g +1g here at $229 : https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-SX3008F-Enterprise-Integrated-Protection/dp/B0973T7BGL/

 

The microtik 8 x 10g +1g version is around $280: https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-Desktop-Gigabit-Ethernet-CRS309-1G-8S/dp/B07NFXN4SS/

 

So each computer will have 2 network cards, one for internet and one direct connection to nas. Any other device that wants to access the NAS can get it through the 1gbps connection.

 

10g cards are like 40-50$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/354703993126?epid=1094295346

x520 are cheaper but not supported on windows 11, because Intel wants to be a jerk... x540 cards are supported

 

another switch option : https://www.amazon.com/12-Port-Gigabit-UnManaged-Multi-Gig-XGS1010-12-ZZ0101F/dp/B084MLC83G/

 

has 8 1gb , 2 2.5g , 2 sfp+ ports but costs more.

 

 

[Shadow10499]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

You could do that, but I'm not sure it's worth investing money in 2.5g switches.

 

With just 3 pcs personally I'd get a 10gbps switch : https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-CRS305-1G-4S-Gigabit-Ethernet-RouterOS/dp/B07LFKGP1L/  and 4 10g cards to put in each computer and nas.

The router has 4 10g ports and 1 gbps port - the switch can be connected to the router through the 1gbps connection and the 4 ports can be used by the nas and 3 pcs. 

 

another option is the tplink 8x10g +1g here at $229 : https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-SX3008F-Enterprise-Integrated-Protection/dp/B0973T7BGL/

 

The microtik 8 x 10g +1g version is around $280: https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-Desktop-Gigabit-Ethernet-CRS309-1G-8S/dp/B07NFXN4SS/

 

So each computer will have 2 network cards, one for internet and one direct connection to nas. Any other device that wants to access the NAS can get it through the 1gbps connection.

 

10g cards are like 40-50$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/354703993126?epid=1094295346

x520 are cheaper but not supported on windows 11, because Intel wants to be a jerk... x540 cards are supported

 

another switch option : https://www.amazon.com/12-Port-Gigabit-UnManaged-Multi-Gig-XGS1010-12-ZZ0101F/dp/B084MLC83G/

 

has 8 1gb , 2 2.5g , 2 sfp+ ports but costs more.

 

 

That's actually really clever. I wouldn't have thought about doing it that way. I'll need to go custom on the NAS to be able to have a 10Gb card without paying an arm and a leg for a prebuilt. This also means in probably spending more on an NVME cache to come close to saturating 10Gb. Thanks for the recommendation though. I wasn't sure if $100 for a 2.5Gb switch was worth it when 10Gb were around that $200 range. I figured it didn't matter since the router only had 2.5Gb out, but I hadn't thought about separating the internet and data to the PCs like that. Very clever. Unfortunately my PC is an ITX so it won't get 10Gb, but at least it will get completely saturated. Sorry I'm a noob. I really do appreciate the responses

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 hours ago, Shadow10499 said:

That's actually really clever. I wouldn't have thought about doing it that way. I'll need to go custom on the NAS to be able to have a 10Gb card without paying an arm and a leg for a prebuilt. This also means in probably spending more on an NVME cache to come close to saturating 10Gb. Thanks for the recommendation though. I wasn't sure if $100 for a 2.5Gb switch was worth it when 10Gb were around that $200 range. I figured it didn't matter since the router only had 2.5Gb out, but I hadn't thought about separating the internet and data to the PCs like that. Very clever. Unfortunately my PC is an ITX so it won't get 10Gb, but at least it will get completely saturated. Sorry I'm a noob. I really do appreciate the responses

Thing is 10Gbit cards are expensive (at best double the price of 2.5Gbit, I could only find them at about five times the price), especially if you already have 2.5Gbit NICs.

 

That switch only has SFP+ ports, so you need either an SFP+ 10Gbit card for each port and use DAC (if all the PCs are within 5m of the switch), or SFP+ 10Gbit copper adapters in each port of the switch you use.

 

SFP+ 10Gbit adapters add yet more cost plus that switch recommends you only use a maximum of two SFP+ to copper adapters due to the heat they produce.  So a 2.5Gbit switch is likely cheaper overall.