10 Gb Ethernet anyone?

Audio Gear Talk
1

I’m not thinking this will improve audio quality or do anything positive with Roon whatsoever. At least not in the short run. BUT, I have to replace a couple of switches in our house anyway, and it seemed like a waste to invest in yesterday’s backbone…

So. two questions:

(1) Is anyone using Roon with 10GB ethernet switches or network cards? Any problems with it? All compatible?

(2) A more general question: if I have two 10GB ethernet switches in the house but no actual computers or other devices with anything more than GB ethernet adapters in them, does this do anything beneficial at all - I mean, assuming that there is other traffic between these two switches (streaming video, etc.) does the mere having a faster connection between the two switches do anything to help general network congestion? Or is the speed at the endpoints a limiter as between communication between switches? Something I don’t know…

Thanks for the help guys!

2

I don’t know, but I wouldn’t waste my money.

3

There are some affordable switches and cards out there. My point is that it could also be viewed as a waste of money to buy several switches that are limited to 1GBE when 10GBE is affordable. But what I am curious about is whether having that faster switch-to-switch backbone makes any sense or if speed is limited to the capabilities of the endpoints…

4

Well, you certainly can’t extract data or insert data faster than the devices on each end are capable. Maybe if you had too many of those devices trying to send data through a switch at the same time, a faster switch might help, IDK. Personally, I think there are better ways to use my money.

5

That’s the question I am asking. This isn’t an audiophile tweaky snake oil thing. It’s a technical question.

6

Yes, I understand that. I just gave my opinion. I think that’s allowable here.

7

All devices communicating with each other need the same specification to achieve 1G, 19G etc. Otherwise, limited to lowest common denominator.

I doubt there is any benefit doing this in the home. The weakest link will always be your internet connection and streaming services. Around the house you’ll need CAT6 or 7 depending on the length of your cable runs (can’t imaging many being over 150 feet though.)

8

Depends on your network topology.

If I have

  • 5 devices with 1Gbps connections to one switch
  • 5 devices with 1Gbps connections to the other switch
  • a 10Gbps connection between the two switches

then any device can talk to any other device at the full 1Gbps (indeed, you can have 5 such conversations simultaneously).

If the switches were connected by only a 1Gbps link, then the bandwidth between devices on one side of the link and devices on the other would be limited to a total of 1Gbps. (In the worst case scenario, you’d prefer to be sending 5Gbps over that link.)

That said, if most of the data on your LAN is coming from the internet, then your internet connection is the bottleneck and having more bandwidth internal to your LAN won’t help.

2 Likes
9

I have been thinking about 10gb for a while now. For Roon and also for Plex.

Not to use for listening to Roon but to transfer to the core the songs i rip or purchased. Same goes for Plex which by the way the total file size is way bigger than the audio. I also have large backups on a daily basis from one side of the house to the other.

–MD

10

It’s tempting in terms of future proofing isn’t it? If you’re serious about upgrading the network someday then it might be worth it. I’ve not tried so can’t give you any info regarding compatibility but I doubt it’s an issue. You might see some benefit depending on how you structure your network as @Jacques_Distler points out.

While 10GB switches are becoming affordable yesterday’s backbone is so cheap these days that there’s still plenty of money to be saved purchasing 1GB ethernet.

11

It’s allowable to give your opinion for sure but it’s a lot more helpful if you actually have some knowledge on the subject that you are offering a response to. You basically admit you don’t know anything about the subject and then go on to offer an opinion. That’s not in the least bit helpful and the problem with this site. People fee compelled to offer an opinion on everything without a single shred of knowledge. The guy asked for knowledge and you offered him a very uninformed opinion.

2 Likes
12

But, it’s my opinion. You just gave your’s. Most responses on this site are opinions.

13

But it’s not helpful. Just just.

1 Like
14

The only benefit is if you are working with large amount of data across your network. There is no advantage in streaming terms, DSD512 is around 50Mbit/s I believe, bluray movies around 35Mbit/s so a regular 1G network can do the job. Now if you have multiple computers doing heavy network traffic (backups for example to a backup server or stuff like that) you will gain a time advantage (10 times faster theoretically) but if this is worth the very high cost is only up to you.

3 Likes
15

Thanks, this is what I was looking to understand. I do understand that nothing in my internal network will affect what I can suck out of the Internet. But the question is whether I can slowly improve my internal connections for moving and copying data while removing a theoretical bottleneck between switches.

Yep, know that, thank you.

2 Likes
16

I was thinking about this for a while too, in the end it just doesn’t justify the cost (for me). I run the backups over night and I really don’t care how long they take. I’m using teaming where I need a larger bandwidth.

17

My home LAN is a 10gb Ethernet. My FLAC library is hosted on a NAS connected to the 10gb network. So is the Node 2i. The Roon server is hosted on a Mac Mini, which is connected to the network via WiFi.

Everything works like a charm.

18

There are some switches less than $200 and cards at around $100 - yes more expensive than 1GBE but also more future proof.

19

A $200 10G switch may be future proof functionality wise, but I doubt that will survive long enough to see a future!

2 Likes
20

I was looking at fiber and the price has come down quite a bit. At least once a month I purchase a couple of 4K Blu Rays. I ripped them in both 4K and also just Blu Ray because not every TV for me is 4K.

So once a month I have to upload these files to my Plex server and also once a month I purchase a CD or download a high res. Of course all of these media files I have in 2 locations and having to upload to the other.

Everything I have in my environment is lickity split except for these transfers.

–MD