Looking at the TVS-871 but do not have ability to add 10GbE card.

[esbowman]

So, I thought I had 10GbE RJ45 ports on my two Windows machines. Turns out I don't. My initial plan was to use Cat 6 cables to connect to a TVS-871 with a 10G card add-on. The other issue is that I have all PCI slots used by multiple GPUs, which I must keep in place for GPU Rendering. The two desktops are primarily used for 3D, motion graphics and video editing.

Considering I can not add 10GbE or Thunderbolt to these towers (due to GPUs already installed), what is my best route? I'd like to be able to connect both of them to the Qnap NAS to share all project files, footage etc., and work directly from the NAS. If it helps, one tower has 2 x 1 Gigabit ports, and the other tower has 1. However, I'm not sure using the Qnap over 1G ethernet will be fast enough for video editing etc.

Finally, it's not possible to connect them both via USB 3.1 right? I'm assuming those ports are for printers, ext. drives etc.

Guidance is greatly appreciated!

[dolbyman]

So far I know of no USB3.x USB to 10GbE adapter.. apart from that I think you are SOL ... buy a bigger main board (with 10GbE port or) for GPUs and free expansion slots

Alternatively, do video editing on a dedicated machine (with 10GbE port)

[esbowman]

Thanks man. Although not ideal, swapping the board for a new one wouldn't be horrible. I have 4 GPUs in my current tower however, so I'd pretty much need to find a board with 10GbE built-in. The X99-E-10G WS would work nicely though and still allow me to keep the 4 GPUs in there. My other machine is actually a mini ITX but I think I could do the same with it.

I wish I would have upgraded to the NAS before building the two new machines. DOh!

[Johnno72]

I agree with Dolby, the only way forward being a dedicated 10GbE PC or try and upgrade your m/b that has 10GbE on-board, compatible with existing GPU's, RAM and CPU and enough PCI's for your GPU's, I also would prefer to have one PCI in reserve if possible, have seen many on-board NIC's fail for no apparent reason.

[Bob Zelin]

the advice you have been given is correct. You will get wonderful performance with the addition of an Intel X550-T2 10GbE card to your PC systems (other companies like ATTO and Sonnet make these as well) -
but you MUST have these cards for video editing of hi speed large bandwidth 4K editing. With a 1G connection, your performance will be limited to 100 MB/sec. So you either lose one of the GPU cards, or you change
motherboards in your PC's. The TVS-871T is a wonderful product and comes with two free built in 10Gbase-T ports. I believe it's approaching end of life. You might want to consider the TVS-1282T or the incredible
TS-1685T, which is a 12 bay, has the 2 free 10Gbase-T ports, and has the ability to put a 12G miniSAS expander into it for future add on storage from QNAP. And it's only $300 more than the TVS-871T. USB3.1 for networking and video performance is not going to happen.

Bob Zelin