Should you get a 2.5 GbE switch, even if your internet speed is slower?

More properties are being equipped with fibre connections, whether to a nearby cabinet from the internet service provider (ISP) or directly to the house. These connections offer speeds over 1,000 Mbps (or 1 Gbps), which can fully saturate a 1 Gbps local area network (LAN). Most ISP-provided routers will only have 1 Gbps ports for connecting devices, but some with faster ports and aftermarket options will more than likely offer superior specifications, so should you purchase a 2.5 Gbps-capable network switch, even if your internet is technically slower?

A single NAS drive can saturate a 1 GbE network

“The network is the computer” is a famous quote by John Cage at Sun Microsystems, and it’s completely true. Your PC (and all other devices on the LAN) are only as capable and versatile as the network allows. 1GbE has been (and continues to be) perfectly fine for basic computing. This could be online gaming, video streaming, and downloading files sporadically. As more people look to self-host services from network-attached storage (NAS) and build out home lab hardware, the need for speed continues to grow within the home.

A single 1 Gbps link will have a limit of around 1,000 Mbps, depending on various factors. This equates to data transfer rates of around 100 MB/s, which is pretty fast for networking but pales in comparison to internal storage within a PC. A modern PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD can hit speeds of 15,000 MB/s. But there’s a good chance you won’t be using PCIe 5.0 drives to load data for other devices on the network. Most NAS enclosures will have mechanical or SSDs running through the SATA III interface, limiting speeds to 600 MB/s.

A mechanical drive, such as the Seagate IronWolf range of NAS drives, tops out at around 210 MB/s, which is more than what a 1 Gb port allows. A 2.5 GbE switch would provide bandwidth for up to around 250 MB/s, allowing the NAS to handle simultaneous connections without being bottlenecked by the network link. Would you likely hit the read and write limits of your NAS often enough? Unless you’re handling larger files such as 4K video, there’s a good chance you won’t hit any limits, even with a home lab running a few services.

Related

A 10GbE switch was the best upgrade for my home lab

1 Gigabit may have been all the rage a decade ago, but it’s far from ideal when you’re running a dedicated home lab with multiple NAS units and server rigs. While you could argue that not everybody needs the ultra-fast speeds of the 10 Gigabit standard, I’d always recommend investing in a network switch that includes a couple of 10GbE ports if you’re a computing enthusiast. Heck, most of the devices in my computing lab run at 2.5G speeds, and I’ve only got a handful of systems that can leverage the 10GbE ports on my Zyxel XGS1250-12 network switch. Nevertheless, a switch is often the most expensive investment in a network stack, and it’s always a great idea to future-proof it by grabbing one that has some 10GbE connections.

So, is a 2.5GbE network switch worth it?

This depends on what you plan to use the network for, what hardware will be running on the LAN, and how many people will be using the internet and any self-hosted services. If you simply wish to mess around with some light streaming through Jellyfin or Plex, back up all your devices to the NAS, run Nextcloud, and have a few IP cameras connected to Frigate, your 1 Gbps network should be able to handle the throughput. Do much more than this, and you’ll likely need a faster LAN, which is where a 2.5 GbE network switch comes into play.

Hooking up a 2.5 GbE switch to your router can open new doors to faster networking for running services and moving data without affecting other home users. With 250 MB/s to work with, you’ll have ample bandwidth to allow for external media streaming, as well as everything else you wish to do internally on the LAN. Fully saturating a 1Gb connection takes some work, but once you’re almost meeting the limit a few times a day, it’s worth considering the upgrade, and if you’re planning to purchase a switch regardless, 2.5 GbE would be the way to go.

They don’t cost much more than 1 GbE network switches and will provide plenty of room to expand your home lab with new services and hardware.

No, you don’t need a new router

But what happens if you only have a router with 1GbE ports and add a 2.5GbE switch to the mix? Won’t all your hardware be bottlenecked by this slower link? Not at all, and that’s what makes network switches so powerful! Instead of routing traffic through the router (going against its name), a network switch is smart enough to load all the MAC addresses and handle traffic management without the router’s support. This means your PC and NAS can communicate at nearly 2,500 Mbps speeds even if your router only has 1 Gbps network ports.

When a network switch is added to the LAN, think of the router as handling external connections and the switch as directing internal traffic. This makes home lab deployment easy, even with slower ISP-provided equipment. When you would need a new router is when your broadband is upgraded beyond what its internal ports can handle. If your connection goes beyond 1 Gbps, you’ll need a faster device to allow your internal hardware to communicate with external servers at higher speeds.