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    2.5Gbit Ethernet on a budget - so far so good!

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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @mark_lab_user
      last edited by

      @mark_lab_user said in 2.5Gbit Ethernet on a budget - so far so good!:

      NetGate should build a 2.5GBE embedded router for the SME market !

      They do.. The 4100 has

      (4) 2.5 Gbps RJ-45 "direct" (unswitched) ethernet LAN ports

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      M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • M
        mark_lab_user @johnpoz
        last edited by

        @johnpoz Hey thanks for that. That 4100 looks really nice. Tha C3338R Atom has some NIC's built-in to the Chip if I recall correctly, this bypassing the need for PCIe ?

        johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @mark_lab_user
          last edited by

          @mark_lab_user and those for sure could be used as wan ports as well.. I think all the new models have 2.5ge on them..

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
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          • M
            mark_lab_user @johnpoz
            last edited by

            @johnpoz That 4100 would cost approx $1000 CDN landed here due to exchange rate vs USD and some shipping and then 13% VAT. But the bonus would be 1 year of tech support!
            Seems like the perfect anchor for anyone trying to get multi-gigabit out of their new fangled WIFI routers. With the 2.5Gbit headroom maybe some folks would actually see 1Gbit plus speeds out of their WIFI 6, 6e and 7 toys. That's if they can find a WIFI router with 2.5 gbit WAN.

            M Austin 0A 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • M
              mark_lab_user @mark_lab_user
              last edited by

              @mark_lab_user Amazon sells the 4100 in Canada for 850 $CDN which equates to 960 $CDN . So I was mistaken.

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              • Austin 0A
                Austin 0 @mark_lab_user
                last edited by

                @mark_lab_user It should be noted that netgate rates the box at only 1.4 Gb/s when doing imix tests with and with the firewall enabled. So depending on your use case it might not actually do 2.5 Gb/s.

                johnpozJ M 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @Austin 0
                  last edited by

                  @Austin-0 imix is never going to show full possible bandwidth of the interface.. By the very nature of that sort of traffic you would never see full wire speed.

                  Same goes for a gig interface - your not going to see full gig with imix either..

                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
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                  Austin 0A 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • M
                    mark_lab_user @Austin 0
                    last edited by

                    @Austin-0 Okay, that is good info. I will take that at face value. And my comment about 960 $CDN is after the VAT but I might guess that there is no 1 year support because it is Amazon!

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                    • Austin 0A
                      Austin 0 @johnpoz
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz Maybe this would be better handled on a different thread, but could you briefly explain why that it is? I thought that imix was just a with many more sessions than iperf, and thus just introduced more CPU overhead.

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                      • M
                        mark_lab_user @Austin 0
                        last edited by

                        @Austin-0 Sure, let's switch threads. I am not familiar with imix.

                        Bottom line here for me is that I just wanted to post my very succesfull results with "pfSense Plus 23,05-RELEASE" in combination with some very budget-wise Realtek NICs.

                        I will update this thread when the WAN comes up at 1.5 Gbits over passive optical in a few days.

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                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @Austin 0
                          last edited by johnpoz

                          @Austin-0 said in 2.5Gbit Ethernet on a budget - so far so good!:

                          briefly explain why that it is?

                          Because imix is going to be mixed up sized frames, some would be full, other would be really small, etc. I have never heard of imix ever showing full possible bandwidth on any nic.. Do your imix test via just a switch to a server, etc. There are some tools to create imix sort of traffic.

                          If you want to know if you "can" see your full isp speed, or full wire speed across interfaces from vlan X to Y over your router.. You would load it up with full frames. Like you were doing a file transfer of say a 10GB file. etc..

                          The iperf test, which is full sized transfer would be better indication if the box is able to route at full wire speed.. I believe @stephenw10 somewhat recently in some other thread mentioned how they test the imix..

                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                          RobbieTTR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • RobbieTTR
                            RobbieTT @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz said in 2.5Gbit Ethernet on a budget - so far so good!:

                            Because imix is going to be mixed up sized frames, some would be full, other would be really small, etc.

                            If you want to know if you "can" see your full isp speed, or full wire speed across interfaces from vlan X to Y over your router.. You would load it up with full frames. Like you were doing a file transfer of say a 10GB file. etc..

                            That is a bit of apples vs oranges. For clarification, when we reference 'wire-speed' it is implicit that this is at the smallest frame size for the data protocol.

                            The value we pay attention to for wire-speed is the packets per second (pps). For 1 Gbps this equates to a minimum 1.488 Mpps.

                            If a link requires larger frames than the minimum to achieve its maximum data speed then it is not capable of wire-speed.

                            ☕️

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                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @RobbieTT
                              last edited by

                              @RobbieTT yes pps is a very important number true.. What I meant by wire speed is you can see gig (or what is expected on gig) you would never actually see gig, etc. Or 2.5 or 5 or 10, etc.

                              Your not going to see 2.5Mbps with imix was my point..

                              Thanks for the clarification..

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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