Help me get this right... 10GbE connection

[westy]

Ok, so I want to run a 10GbE connection between a 2019 iMac and a QNAP NAS. My home office, where the iMac is only has one CAT 6 Ethernet jack, which currently runs to a router, from which I connect to the iMac with another CAT 6 cable. Same story for the NAS, which is in my media room. Only one ethernet jack, which currently runs to a switch, which runs to the NAS.

So, I will be adding a 10GbE card to the NAS and a 10GbE Thunderbolt adapter to the iMac. They question is can I then use the built in ethernet port in the iMac (Gigabit) to run to the router still? And, can I use the existing Gigabit port in the NAS to run to the switch? If so, any tips on making this work?

Finally all of the room ethernet connections terminate in my basement, so I would be connecting those to a switch with Copper 10GbE switch (such as the QSW-M408-4C or Netgear GS110MX). Is this going to work?

 

[heysoundude]

ok, I'm a tad confused: you have one iMac connected to the router or 2?
You've got the NAS connected to a switch which is connected to a router that is also connected to your iMac(s). and you're not able to move data between the iMac in your home office and the NAS in the media room fast enough?
is the switch GigE? is the NAS GigE? (probably) is the router GigE on its ethernet ports? I'm not going to ask about the iMac because I'm sure that is - even my powerbook was.
How many extra ports do you have on the router and switch?
If you connect an extra cable between the switch and your router, does the throughput between the NAS and your iMac seem to increase?

 

[degrub]

How about making a sketch of the cabling and devices ?
English is so imprecise.

 

[Trip]

@westy - Every individual item your proposing is doable, but your overall description of the layout is confusing, making it difficult to give advice on exactly how to connect everything together. As @degrub said, a drawing would help.

 

[Zolty]

If I understood well:
Currently you have iMac and NAS (via switch) connected to your router using Cat 6.
You want: additional 10 Gbe link directly between NAS and iMac only? So you'd need extra cable between NAS and iMac?

 

[westy]

Ok, so let me see if I can clarify. I have attached a diagram, which despite my lack of artistic skills, I hope will help.

The big issue is the iMac and NAS are not in the same room. I want to connect them via a 10Gbe connection and use the iMac's and NAS's original gigabit ethernet ports to connect a router and a switch...

My Office contains my iMac which is currently connected via an ethernet cable to the router, which is sitting next to the iMac. The Router is connected to the network via the only ethernet jack in the room. So what I want to do is
1. run the line from the ethernet jack to the 10Gbe to Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter on my iMac,
2. then run a ethernet cable out of the built in Gigabit Ethernet port on my iMac to the router, so the router is connected to internet/network.

On the NAS end, I want to
1. Run the ethernet cable from the jack to the 10Gbe port
2. Then run an ethernet cable from the NAS to the switch so it can connect to the network and provide internet and network access to my other devices (PS4, Receiver, etc.).

What I really want to know is will the router be able to connect to the network and provide Wifi if the WAN port is connected to the iMac. Or in other words, can the iMac work like a switch and can the NAS do the same?

I hope that make more sense.

 

[Zolty]

What if you put one more small 10 GBe switch where your router and iMac are?
Connect both (router and iMac) to the switch and connect switch to the wall socket).
Second switch on the other end.
You could use something like netgear gs110emx switch. Two muliti gig ports and eight 1 gig ports.
On one end connect router to 1 gig port, imac to 10g and wall to 10 g, on the other end connect wall jack and nas to 10g...

As long as you do not use vlans you should get 10 gbe network internally.

 

[westy]

What if you put one more small 10 GBe switch where your router and iMac are?
Connect both (router and iMac) to the switch and connect switch to the wall socket).
Second switch on the other end.
You could use something like netgear gs110emx switch. Two muliti gig ports and eight 1 gig ports.
On one end connect router to 1 gig port, imac to 10g and wall to 10 g, on the other end connect wall jack and nas to 10g...

As long as you do not use vlans you should get 10 gbe network internally.

That is definitely plan B. I was hoping to avoid having to buy two switches. The other possibility is trying to pull an additional cable to each room, but with my luck I will get it half way pulled and then it won't pull any more. hahaha

 

[Zolty]

Honestly - I believe what you presented on your drawing would not work:
it is using iMac and NAS as switches....
I do not think each of them can perform such a function.

 

[Trip]

@westy - @Zolty is correct: your proposed solution/drawing is not really feasible; individual hosts (iMac and NAS), even with multiple network interfaces onboard, cannot really be made to transport their own network traffic and that of the entire LAN, not without some form of port bridging (if it's even possible, which isn't likely on either iMac or NAS), which won't offer very good performance, nor reliability, not to mention you'd be creating a "daisy-chain" with two highly-compounded single points of failure right in the middle of either side of your LAN -- not a good idea on any level.

In order to provide proper wired connectivity between iMac and NAS, while properly connecting the rest of your LAN, you would need to do one of the following:

Option 1) Add a 10Gb cable run to both the iMac and NAS from the 10Gb basement switch ("S1"), leaving everything else in-place, per the following schematic (10Gb links shown in bold):

Option 2) Replace your 1Gb access switch ("S2") with a 10Gb version and add another ("S3") in the office, connecting the iMac and NAS to each via 10Gb cabling; then uplink both S2 and S3 back to S1 at 10Gb/s, either using the pre-existing copper, or, optionally, with bend-insensitive fiber (dotted lines, would be used in place of copper for switch-to-switch links), and either keep the copper runs to use for something like multi-gig wireless APs (in the future), or just remove them.

Option 3) A combo of Option 1 (a single new cable run to S1) and Option 2 (a single new 10Gb access switch).

First off, for any option, you will need at least one new 10Gb-capable switch in the basement as your "core" switch ("S1").

From there, Option 1 is the lowest cost, simplest layout and highest overall bandwidth; it also keeps the iMac and NAS 10Gb links fully dedicated to them and them alone, plus a dedicated links to/from the router (R1) and media room switch (S2) -- provided, of course, you're able to add two new cable runs from iMac and NAS back to S1. Option 2 is obviously much more expensive and potentially more complex, with no real benefit for you now (only if you wanted to scale beyond 10Gb between iMac/NAS over fiber in the future). Option 3 is a possibility, but again, more of a hypothetical. Go with Option 1 if you can.

Regarding specific switches, QNAP options may be good enough, but they don't really have that much pedigree in switch making. In the same cost segment, I'd probably lean more towards Mikrotik or Netgear. Beyond that, Cisco SG or CBS would also be solid, or cheap/used enterprise switches (HPE, Juniper, etc.), provided the model in question is quiet/cool enough.

Hope that helps.

 

[anotherengineer]

One other thing to mention, err two things.

If your Mac has a sata SSD it will cap out at about 500MB/s or 5Gb/s.

2nd depending how your NAS is configured RAID 0 or RAID 5 or HDD or SSD will affect the throughput quite a bit also. Worse case HDD in RAID 0 about 100MB/s or 1Gb/s, best case RAID 5 with SSDs, should break 500MB/s depending on quantity of SSDs.

Something to keep in mind before investing in 10GbE

 

[Samir]

One other thing to mention, err two things.

If your Mac has a sata SSD it will cap out at about 500MB/s or 5Gb/s.

2nd depending how your NAS is configured RAID 0 or RAID 5 or HDD or SSD will affect the throughput quite a bit also. Worse case HDD in RAID 0 about 100MB/s or 1Gb/s, best case RAID 5 with SSDs, should break 500MB/s depending on quantity of SSDs.

Something to keep in mind before investing in 10GbE

And because of these limitations, 2.5/5GbE may make more sense.