10g Home Networking

Goal

Upgrade from 1G to 10GbE in my tiny home netowrk.

Current Setup

• Netgate 2100 running pfSense and a UniFi UAP AC-PRO WiFi access point
• SuperMicro based NAS/media center with i3 cpu, ECC RAM, ZFS filesystem, running containers, including Pi-hole.
• random netgear and d-link unmanaged switches

Why?

I switched to the pfSense/UniFi setup once it seemed the old Apple Airport Extreme was getting a little too long in the tooth. It still worked fine, literally the only networking equipment of its kind to last me over a decade. Most routers/modems die on me within a few years. Netgear, d-link, etc, all seem to be poorly made, and worse, insecure and abandoned. The Airport Extreme still had infrequent firmware updates up until the last couple of years of use, and no hardware hiccups whatsoever. And I trust the quality of the firewall much more than the consumer grade swill that is pushed out.

I considered getting a higher end router/wifi AP, and reflashing it with Open-WRT or Tomato firmware, but it seemed like too much work finding the highest quality hardware that was still available and compatible.

One advantage of a separate router and access point is that the AP can be upgraded independently of the router for when Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) becomes more widely available.

So while I wait for that to happen, I find myself wanting to upgrade the speed between my NAS and my other systems. I’ve been using 1G forever now. It seemed so fast when I first upgraded from 100Mb to 1G. Now?

Ugh. So. Slow.

So let’s upgrade to 10G wired speeds. 100G would be nice, but the price is pretty high still. Will need to wait for that to come down to consumer levels, I think.

So I need

A 10GbE switch. I’d prefer unmanaged, as I don’t really need any of the bells and whistles, but it seems hard to find in this segment. It’ll probably happen once the prices come down. 1G switches used to be multi-hundred dollars. Now you can get a cheap one for $40.

I’d prefer RJ45 connections, to avoid the extra expense and heat from SFP+ transceivers. The runs I’m currently in need of are less than 40FT, so simple twisted-pair should be fine.

However, I need it to be quiet, since it’ll be sitting in my living space a few feet from my head. Aaannd I get super annoyed by most sounds.

My options:

item	price	ports	notes	links
MikroTik 12-Port 10G Switch with Dual Power Supply CRS312-4C+8XG-RM	$489	8 10G RJ45, 4 SFP+, 1 1G	noise at 42dba, reviews universally hate admin interface, dual power supply	MFG YT
MikroTik 9-Port Desktop Switch, 1 Gigabit Ethernet Port, 8 SFP+ 10Gbps Ports (CRS309-1G-8S+IN)	$240	8 10GbE, 1 1G	Silent!	MFG YT
TRENDnet 8-Port 10G EdgeSmart Switch, 8 x 10GBASE-T Ports, Supports 2.5G-5G NBASE-T, 160Gbps Switch Capacity, 1U Rack Mountable, 10G Managed Network Switch, Lifetime Protection, Black, TEG-7080ES	$675	8 10GbE	quiet maybe? Lots of negative reviews, operational issues. Discontinued according to MFG site	MFG
QNAP QSW-1208-8C-US 12-Port Unmanaged 10GbE Switch Twelve SFP+ with Shared Eight 10GBASE-T Ports	$620	12 SFP+, 8 SFP+/RJ45 all 10Gb	Silent. Bad reviews, with lots of operational issues. no ipv6!	MFG
QNAP QSW-M408-4C 10GbE Managed Switch, with 4-Port 10GbE SFP+/RJ45 Combo and 8-Port Gigabit	$350	4 10GbE SFP+/RJ45, 8 1G RJ45	quiet, overall decent reviews.	MFG
ASUS XG-C100C 10G Network Adapter Pci-E X4 Card with Single RJ-45 Port	$93			MFG comparing XG-C100C with Intel X550T1 (also $100 vs $330!)

Prices are from amazon. Until recently, I used to exclusively buy from NewEgg for my tech purchases, due to their history of fighting patent trolls (yes, the lawyer who spearheaded that left the company long ago). But now, with the greedy crap they’re pulling with GPUs during the pandemic, I’m no longer rewarding them exclusively with my dollars.

Now, I’ll use either, but I’m wary of 3rd party sellers, and always using some sort of fake review filter (https://reviewmeta.com or fakespot) for big ticket items.

So I’ll make a choice, order it up and see what happens!