Author: Lin Fei Source: IT Times
In recent years, with the rapid increase in the speed of broadband to the home, many regions have begun to further accelerate the speed on the basis of gigabit fiber to the home, and operators have begun to promote 2,000 megabytes (i.e. 2Gbps) high-speed broadband services in some regions, such as Shanghai Telecom, last year. After fiber-to-the-home, the home network environment also needs to be upgraded.
If only gigabit routers are used, the actual measured network speed often cannot reach the theoretical upper limit. At the same time, with the increasing popularity of the Wi-Fi 6 standard, the theoretical maximum transmission rate of its wireless network is as high as 9600Mbps. With this in mind, it is worth trying 2.5Gbps technology to build a home network infrastructure that goes beyond the traditional gigabit level.
What is 2.5G?
Nowadays, a network interface marked with 2.5G is often seen in network devices such as optical modems, routers, and switches, which means that the device can support a data transfer rate of up to 2.5 (Gbps) through the interface, that is, 320MB/s, which is 2.5 times the popular 1Gbps (Gigabit) port rate, and can better meet the needs of high-bandwidth applications in the internal LAN, such as video, audio and other large file transmission, 4K, 8K video on demand, home cloud storage sharing, etc.
It should be noted that this standard is different from 2.5G in the field of mobile communication technology, which refers to the mobile communication standard in the transition period from 2G to 3G, which has been basically eliminated.
It's time to upgrade
For high-end users, under the premise of stability, the faster the intranet speed, the better, but in practical applications, the cost of 10G (10 Gigabit) intranet is still high, and the cost-effective advantage of 2.5G network is very obvious. Even though the price of some enterprise-level optical port equipment has been relatively affordable in recent years, for home users who have completed the renovation, it is necessary to consider the cost and difficulty of redeploying optical fiber in the whole house. Secondly, many settings of the 10G network port only support the optical port (optical fiber interface), and the 2.5G network is basically the RJ45 network port (copper interface or called the electrical port), and at the same time, at present, on the application equipment, most of the mainstream home NAS and personal computers are not equipped with 10G network port.
If the original home network uses Category 6 or higher network cables, the Gigabit network can be seamlessly upgraded to a 2.5G network without replacing the cabling. At the same time, the price of devices supporting 2.5G network in the market is becoming more and more affordable, and mid-to-high-end computer motherboards will be equipped with 2.5G network ports as standard, and even some high-end motherboards are equipped with dual interfaces, and many mini computers and NAS are also equipped with 2.5G network ports. In terms of network equipment, low-end switches have been equipped with 2.5G network ports as standard for a long time, and many of the optical modems provided by operators have their own 2.5G network ports, and almost all Wi-Fi 6 routers that are being cultivated have 2.5G network ports.
For example, high-end smart TVs and streaming devices may be equipped with 2.5G ports for 4K/8K video streaming, next-generation game consoles may also integrate 2.5G or higher Ethernet interfaces to improve online gaming performance and download speeds, and professional audio and video producers will use professional equipment (such as professional audio mixers, digital audio workstations, Similarly, NVRs and high-end IP cameras in home security monitoring systems can also handle multiple high-definition video streams through 2.5G network ports, and high-definition video conferencing VoIP devices in remote office scenarios will also use 2.5G network ports to ensure sufficient bandwidth.
What can 2.5G networks do?
The read speed of NAS storage is optimized
When the NAS is equipped with a 2.5G network port, how to effectively improve the read speed of other devices accessing the NAS? The simplest and most economical solution is to buy a Wi-Fi 6 router with a 2.5G network port, and the current market price is only about 100 yuan.
Retain the connection between the modem and the WAN port of the Wi-Fi 6 router, set the 2.5G network port of the router to the LAN port, and use a network cable to directly connect the 2.5G network port of the NAS to the 2.5G network port of the router. When the device uses the Wi-Fi 5G frequency band, it can wirelessly access the NAS in the same LAN to achieve a read speed of more than 210MB/s, and the performance will be significantly improved in application scenarios such as large file transfer, HD video streaming, and multi-user resource sharing.
Speed up access to your computer
If you want to further improve the speed of a desktop or laptop to access a NAS on the same LAN, you can buy a Wi-Fi 6 router with dual 2.5G network ports, and the current market starting price is about 300 yuan.
When setting, set these two 2.5G network ports as LAN ports, and connect the 2.5G network port of the NAS to one network port of the router, and the other network port to the 2.5G network port of the computer. The speed at which a computer can read content from a stored NAS can be close to the theoretical speed of a 2.5G network.
If the computer itself does not have a 2.5G network port, the desktop can add a 2.5G network card with a PCIe interface of about 100 yuan, and the laptop can choose a slightly more expensive USB interface 2.5G network card.
Comprehensively improve the LAN transmission speed
If you want to improve the overall speed experience of the LAN, you need to use a Wi-Fi 6 router with dual 2.5G ports and a full 2.5Gbps multi-port switch. Depending on the level of performance and the number of ports, the price range is roughly between CNY300 and CNY2,000.
When setting, the two 2.5Gbps network ports on the router are set to LAN ports, one of the network ports is connected to the switch, and all LAN devices with 2.5Gbps network ports only need to access the switch interface through network cables, and the data transfer rate between these devices can easily exceed 300MB/s.