Thunderbolt or USB-C Ethernet Performance and/or interface recommendations

[compunction]

I had a 1Gbps Comcast link installed today and setup multi-wan with my existing 100Mbps AT&T link.  I got that all working and PBR on the firewall to split my traffic and failover.  But as I started testing speeds I noticed that my USB-C NIC maxes out at 60Mbps.  I assumed my AT&T connection was only capable of 60Mbps before, but now I am finding its a interface issue (likely driver).  As I am using an Intel NUC, I only have one physical interface can I am using that on the LAN side, so I am stuck with Thunderbolt or USB-C for my WAN interfaces.  They are coming up as ue0 and ue1.

ugen1.4: <Realtek USB 10100 LAN> at usbus1, cfg=1 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=ON (64mA)
ugen1.5: <Realtek USB 101001000 LAN> at usbus1, cfg=1 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=ON (64mA)

I tried to see if another driver supported these NIC's but that does not appear to be the case.

Does anyone have recommendations for different NIC's
OR
Know how to boost the performance on the ones I have?

Thanks
Mark

[guest18611]

Hello Mark,

I use this USB to Ethernet adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MYT481C

https://speedof.me/ reports Download Speed: 99.57 Mbps

Edit: Ups! You wanted USB-C...sorry! But maybe you have a spare USB Port?

[compunction]

Thanks for the info, it looks like that one uses a ASIX AX88772 chip, maybe I can find usb-c adapter with a chip supported by the same driver.

[rungekutta]

Rather than spending more money on trying to make this work, wouldn't it be wiser to replace the NUC with a quiet small form factor slim PC with dual Intel nics on a PCI-card? They can be very cheap second hand. Or one of the Qotom boxes. Your Realtek adapter may be the problem here (poor drivers in FreeBSD) and I don't know if you can find a well supported one (Intel) on USB in the 1st place. Also depending on what NUC you've got, but the more recent ones have pretty beefy graphics etc - better suited as a HTPC than a headless router...?

[compunction]

Yeah I popped the nic in my Mac and I can hit over 900Mbps, so it does appear to be a driver issue.

Qotom is new to me, how reliable are they?

[rantwolf]

Hi. I'm using two boxes.
One is selfmade with a ASRock J3455 MicroATX and a HP NIC364T.
The second one is a Qotom Q355G4.

Both of them have very good perfomance.
But the Qotom is getting one red point for the high temperature.

[rungekutta]

I've got that Qotom model too (i5), bought from Ali Express. Similarly, gets a bit hot once the ambient approaches 30 C. However it was quite cheap and irrespective, I found fanless design with 4 Intel NICs pretty hard to come by other than as an exotic (expensive) custom build. From that persp I think the Qotoms are pretty unique.

Because of where the fiber connects to my home, and wiring constraints, I keep the router in the bedroom so the noise level is pretty important for me. If that was less of a consideration I would have used a cheap second hand business desktop instead with a bunch of NICs on PCI cards.

Or as a VM... I've got an ESXi server in the cellar and that is *not* quiet ;-)
That would need more cabling though, or exotic VLAN configuration

[compunction]

Thanks everyone for the information.  I ended up building my own box with dual intel Nic's.  Now on to figuring out why I am only getting 500-600Mbps on this Nic, when I can get 950 with I connect my Mac directly to the cable modem.  But that is for another thread if I do not find an answer via google.

root@opnsense:/home/compunction # ./speedtest-cli.py --server 11143
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Comcast Cable (<removed>)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Retrieving information for the selected server...
Hosted by NationalNet (Marietta, GA) [8.53 km]: 12.133 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 505.33 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed................................................................................................
Upload: 42.06 Mbit/s
root@opnsense:/home/compunction # ./speedtest-cli.py --server 11143 --source 192.168.24.1
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Comcast Cable (<removed>)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Retrieving information for the selected server...
Hosted by NationalNet (Marietta, GA) [8.53 km]: 12.936 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 292.27 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed................................................................................................
Upload: 27.74 Mbit/s
root@opnsense:/home/compunction #