Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:27 pm
That mini Mikrotik switch is clearly the ticket. Also consider if you have dual port interfaces, you can hook up 3 computers using 6 cables into a triangular configuration, which is a nice intermediate configuration allowing you to circumvent a switch... with 4 hosts you'll want to have a switch. I've done some reading on that switch. It is passively cooled and gets warm (but not too hot), this is a good thing because a switch equipped with a server room jet engine fan would not be suitable. A 4 port SFP+ switch is pretty much perfect for at least the kind of setup I have in my house... a NAS (currently running Ubuntu, might go FreeNAS, and hosting ZFS pools of course), a Windows gaming desktop, a Linux server (which the NAS is doubling as right now but this will be a thing), and a Mac for the wife who edits photos & videos. That's 4 10G hosts to fill it up, and that last 1G Ethernet will go to the internet wifi router.
For the compatibility with Macs, I will at long last be able to use this Sonnet e-GPU thunderbolt enclosure that I bought for some reason and can purpose it as a 10G network interface. So far it seems that if I get a Chelsio NIC it should be easy to connect a Mac to the 10G LAN, and would also be a suitable piece of hardware should I switch my NAS to FreeBSD. There is some sort of synergy between Chelsio and BSD.
I'm currently trying to source a Mellanox or Intel 10G card preferably with 2 SFP+ ports for the main PC that runs Windows. What i've learned so far is that Chelsio's are less power-efficient compared to these.
I have an Aquantia 10G Ethernet card that came with my Zenith Extreme mobo, and I'm presently scratching my head over whether that is even supposed to be able to connect to the Mikrotik with a suitable transceiver... this is actually the last bit of research to do before I order the components. I did see that this Aquantia chipset may be easy to get working on macOS, which helps.
It's very nice that today it is already possible to get a 10G NIC in the $30 price range and a switch is well under $150. Granted still not pennies, there are special cables involved, and probably some futzing with drivers... but 1Gbit is definitely a bottleneck that can be broken cost-effectively. I'm surprised that it's still such a niche thing. I do have to say, though, wifi has come a long way. It used to be completely nuts to play networked games over wifi. Now it's rarely ever a factor. Things are different now.