what's up with QNAP's obsession with 2.5G Ethernet ?

[Bob Zelin]

Hi -
there are LOTS of new models coming out with 2.5G ethernet. A QNAP QXG-10G1T card is $89. Why are all these new 2.5G ethernet models (and switch) coming out ?
You guys (you know who you are) know more than I do ! What am I missing here ?

Bob Zelin

[jaysona]

2.5GbE is where the industry is going right now.

1. A large installed base of Cat5/5e cabling, which can't support 10Gbe, but 1 & 2.5GbE is possible in most installations, and 5GbE is possible in some clean (not noisy) environments.
2. New 802.11 wireless specs will have theoretical speeds up to 3Gbps
3. For the past 8 months or so Intel has been putting out 2.5Gbe controllers and chipsets.
4. Many Motherboard OEMs have been including 2.5GbE controllers on their gaming/enthusiast higher-end mobos.
5. Many SOHO switch makers have brought relatively affordable 2.5Gbe switches to market.

So, QNAP is just taking advantage of another revenue stream and hoping to capitalize on the lemming effect as everyone jumps on the 2.5Gbe bandwagon.

[dolbyman]

2.5GbE chips and components are probably cheaper and as mentioned 2.5 GbE has better compatiblilty with existing user cables

maybe easier to cool ...

and most consumer nas are more in the range of 2.5GbE anyways ..so less complaints why the 4 spinning disk units cannot even get close to 1000MB\s (maybe)

that said

qnap started 2 years ago the mainstream units with the 'X' variants (10GbE and SFP+) ..then had the elusive 'N' variants with 5GbE ...and now releases lots of 2.5GbE stuff ..so effectively going backwards

[Bob Zelin]

.... so effectively going backwards. Yup. 10G has been out for years. Cat 6 cabling costs nothing. The Aquantia (now Marvell) 10G chips are dirt cheap. Why go thru all this effort ?
What do I know (oh - I know the answer to that question - absolutely nothing !).
Bob

[jaysona]

.... so effectively going backwards. Yup. 10G has been out for years. Cat 6 cabling costs nothing. The Aquantia (now Marvell) 10G chips are dirt cheap. Why go thru all this effort ?
What do I know (oh - I know the answer to that question - absolutely nothing !).
Bob

Lolz!! Please, introduce me to every CFO you know of that will agree that Cat6 cabling "costs noting" and is will to spring for the cost of nothing to replace the installed Cat5/5e cable plant with Cat6 cabling. :p

There is no going backwards, here, this is purely a play by QNAP at capitalizing on what is currently out there and not leaving money on the table. Good for them.

[schumaku]

Not more and not less: 2.5G is the coming-up standard for more and more consumer devices (routers, NAS, mainboards, ...).

[dolbyman]

long time no see Herr Schumaku..welcome back

[Bob Zelin]

Yes. It is wonderful to see Schumaku back on this forum ! OK, so now that you are here, and you are Mr. Netgear - I have a question for you Kurt. Netgear makes the M4300-96X switch which is
relatively reasonably prices for someone that wants an "easy to use" 40G switch (like those who want 40G cards in the QNAP, and on the workstations). But QNAP for 10 seconds started to push
25G, which is a much more realistic bandwidth to work with, with current storage technology. QNAP makes the QXG-25G2SF-CX4 which retails for only $247. But it appears that to get a 25G switch
from Netgear (the M4500 series) is about $15,000 !!!!!! A lot more than an M4300-96X 40G switch. Why ? I saw that Ubiquiti was going to release a 25G switch for cheap, but let's face it - that's not
their market. However, it IS Netgear's market. If 25G is available, and it's cheap - how come Netgear doesn't release a reasonable price 25G switch.

Hey - I could ask the same question about QNAP, with the 10G switches. They could compete with the Netgear XS series switches - but they don't. I don't know why. And now all of this 2.5G.

Bob Zelin

[Deuillevent]

Hello

I suppose that for most 4 or 6 bays NAS, having a 10 Gbits is useless because RAID throughput of the mechanical disks it is far below 10 Gbits bandwidth.
So a 2.5 Gbits interface seems legit.

As an example I own a 453B and just upgraded it with a 10 Gbits card (the one with the 2 SSDs) and connected it to a Mikrotik 10Gbits switch (CRS326-24G-2S+IN) on a RJ45 10Gbit SFP+.
At best I am able to reach a 8.5 Gbit max speed when writing to the NAS without any network optimization (no Flow control, no Jumbo Frames, etc...) and using a short (30cm) CAT7 cable.
(when SSDs are used as cache).

If my 453B was fitted with an internal 2.5 Gbits NIC, it would have been enough for my needs.
But he geek inside my brain wanted more

Florent

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

new 2.5gbe addon for either qnap nas or pc. price unknown. but this one unlike the qm2 addons does not have m.2 ssd slots, so i assume it should be cheaper than the qm2.
https://www.qnap.com/en/news/2020/qnap- ... nas-and-pc


for people that don't have the newer desktop motherboards or nas that have 2.5gbe, there is this addon.

*update

Price: US$67.00

Model:QXG-2G1T-I225

out of stuck?

https://shop.qnap.com/index.php?route=p ... uct_id=387

[dolbyman]

I got a QXG-10G1T for around 100 Dollars, not sure what kind of savings they need to offer to make a 2.5GbE card a bestseller (25 bucks ?)