Home Network - 2.5Gbps Switch on a 1Gbps Network?

[mountainsoft]

I recently set up an old laptop as a basic NAS so my wife and I could share files easily. Everything seems to work well and it backs up nightly to an external hard drive.

However, my current network is all 1Gbs, routers, switches, etc. That's fine for most things, but it is a little slow for transferring large files (i.e. videos) between computers.

Is it possible to connect the NAS and two computers with a new 2.5Gbps switch for faster transfer between these devices, while the rest of the network still runs at 1Gbps? Or does the entire network have to be upgraded to 2.5Gbps to realize speed gains for just those three devices?

 

[GenXguy]

Only the devices needing to transfer at the higher speed need to have the 2.5 Gbps connections - so the NAS and the 2 computers when transferring among just themselves. Other devices can remain on 1 Gbs or slower, and they will continue to transfer the speed they have to date including to / from the devices on the faster connections.

 

[target2019]

What is top network speed in each of your computers?

 

[mountainsoft]

Only the devices needing to transfer at the higher speed need to have the 2.5 Gbps connections - so the NAS and the 2 computers when transferring among just themselves. Other devices can remain on 1 Gbs or slower, and they will continue to transfer the speed they have to date including to / from the devices on the faster connections.

Great, thanks. That's what I figured, but thought I would verify. I probably won't get to it for a while, but it sounds like a good next step.

 

[mountainsoft]

What is top network speed in each of your computers?

Mine has 2.5Gbps built-in. I haven't checked the laptop or my wife's computer, but assume they are both 1Gbps. So I would either need to install a 2.5Gbps card in my wife's computer (again, need to check if it's possible), as well as a USB adapter for the laptop.

There are still things to look into, but I wanted to make sure it was even workable before I bothered researching more.

 

[gwill1010]

Slowest path rules.

 

[target2019]

My WAG is that the old notebook will be the slowest path, unless it has USB 3. Theoretically you're in good shape.

But my guess is no, notebook has USB 2, slower processor, and so on. Hope I'm wrong.

A notebook can act like a NAS, but it isn't really a NAS.

Now that I got this far, what type of drive is in that notebook?

 

[mountainsoft]

My WAG is that the old notebook will be the slowest path, unless it has USB 3. Theoretically you're in good shape.

But my guess is no, notebook has USB 2, slower processor, and so on. Hope I'm wrong.

A notebook can act like a NAS, but it isn't really a NAS.

Now that I got this far, what type of drive is in that notebook?

My old laptop was just sitting around, so I figured I would put it to use as a crude NAS. It's working fine for sharing files between our two desktops, the network just limits large transfers to around 100Mbps or so. Zero problems so far, it's just slow.

The laptop is an Acer Aspire 5 from 2019 and has a Intel Core i5 @ 1.60GHz, two USB 3.1 ports, and I recently upgraded the drive to a 4TB NVME SSD. I also run nightly backups to an external drive.

I figure I'll need to upgrade the network anyway, even if I eventually get a "real" NAS. But one step at a time...

There are several free NAS operating systems I could install, but simple Windows file sharing is working fine for now and it will let me return the laptop back to generic use if I switch things around later.