5 reasons you might want to upgrade to 2.5GbE for your home network

Gigabit Ethernet has been around for a quarter of a century, and the chances are that most of your home networking equipment uses it for wired network connections. But in that time, networking standards have evolved, and both wired and wireless connectivity have become faster. Wi-Fi 7 routers can exceed gigabit speeds, and Ethernet can easily be found at up to 100 GbE speeds.

Just like when gigabit speeds first came out, it’s time to rethink the baseline speed that our home networks run at. Now, I’m not saying you need 10GbE for your home network, although it does provide some level of future-proofing, as Wi-Fi 7 access points come with 10GbE ports, and other network devices will eventually catch up. But somewhere in between is a good place to start, and 2.5GbE feels like that place to me. It’s becoming the default Ethernet speed on PC motherboards, network switches, and routers using it are relatively affordable, and other network-attached devices are starting to use it as the baseline.

5

For NAS bandwidth

Store your files faster with better networking

One of the best reasons to upgrade your home network speed is when you decide to add a NAS to the mix. Whether you’ve picked one of the best prebuilt NAS devices, or built your own out of old PC parts, ensuring that the devices on your network have enough bandwidth to access the stored data is essential. That’s before you start adding things like virtual machines and Docker containers, which also need reliable bandwidth to provide you with the best quality services they offer.

Gigabit Ethernet just won’t cut it in these scenarios and will quickly be overwhelmed by the amount of bandwidth that your devices will want to use. Even with a gigabit internet connection, you’ll still want faster transfer speeds between devices on your home network because who likes waiting for transfers to be completed? Nobody, that’s who, and 2.5GbE gives you faster connectivity while being relatively affordable.

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4

If you upgrade your motherboard

2.5GbE is becoming the new baseline for PC hardware

From budget-friendly motherboards like the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice to flagships like the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero, 2.5GbE networking is becoming the baseline for wired networking connectivity. The faster speeds used to be limited to high-end gaming motherboards or workstation models, but now everyone can enjoy the increased speed.

I’m a big proponent of using Wi-Fi for the convenience it brings, but it’s not infallible, and multi-gig Ethernet is more stable, less prone to interference, and will likely offer lower latency for gaming and other real-time tasks. Until recently, it was true that the Wi-Fi connection on most motherboards was faster than the Ethernet speeds supported by the wired networking chip. But that’s changing fast, and if you want the best connection for online multiplayer, 2.5GbE or above is the way to get it.

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Streaming video files will take up bandwidth really quickly

Having a home media server to reduce your dependency on subscription streaming services is a fantastic way to cut costs while staying entertained. But as anyone who has streamed 4K video from those services knows, it takes a significant amount of bandwidth to support a fantastic user experience while streaming your own media. This might even be streaming from your NAS, or from a media server installed on your desktop PC, which increases the bandwidth needs as you will likely be running other services at the same time.

That means a need for multi-gig networking, and 2.5GbE is still the sweet spot. Not everyone wants to dive into ex-enterprise hardware or worry about SPF+ and the transceivers that it usually needs. The majority of home network users just want something they can buy and plug in the correct cables, so that it gives them stable network speeds. Most modern routers have at least one 2.5GbE port, or possibly two, with one dedicated to the WAN connection to the ISP services. And 2.5GbE unmanaged switches are easily found, easily installed, and don’t require new cables or any administration at all.

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2

To take advantage of a higher ISP package

Multi-gig broadband is slowly rolling out to more locations

More and more internet service providers are offering multi-gig connections, and if you’re going to go above gigabit speeds, you’ll want your home network to be able to carry them. For the U.S., most providers are either offering 1.2 gigabit or 2 gigabits, although there are some outliers with 5 or 10-gigabit plans. If you can get the higher speeds, you’ll want to skip straight to 10GbE for the main wired connections of your home network, but for everyone else, 2.5GbE is a good place to start.

2.5GbE gives you enough bandwidth to support Wi-Fi 6 or 6E, the most common Wi-Fi version for both devices and Wi-Fi routers. It’s not quite enough to fully support Wi-Fi 7, but since it’s going to take a few years before all of our devices are using it, and it’s backward compatible with earlier Wi-Fi versions, you can save that upgrade for the future.

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1

To feed a new wireless AP

New Wi-Fi versions need better Ethernet to keep them supplied

If your home network uses dedicated APs instead of a Wi-Fi router, you probably already know that you need faster Ethernet to properly support faster Wi-Fi versions. For Wi-Fi 6 or 6E, you get enough bandwidth by using 2.5GbE, so you don’t have to go any higher. Wi-Fi 7 users will already know they will need 10GbE, as that’s the Ethernet port their access point will come with. But with Wi-Fi 6 and 6E APs being significantly more affordable, the easiest way to upgrade your network is with 2.5GbE. Of course, this advice will change in the future when Wi-Fi 7 is more widely adopted, but for now I don’t see the need for going faster for your wired network for the majority of users.

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Upgrading your network to 2.5GbE might make sense if you’re upgrading your devices

With devices using 2.5GbE as the baseline Ethernet speed, it’s worth thinking about upgrading your home network to faster speeds. You don’t have to do this all in one go; adding a network switch with support for multiple Ethernet speeds, including 2.5GbE, will give your devices faster-wired connectivity while allowing you to continue using the equipment you already have. And with broadband speeds on the rise, it won’t be long until you have the choice for multi-gig speeds both inside and outside your home.