Simple way to verify 10Gbit performance of a home network

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In my new house I have CAT7 cables for my home network which should support network speeds up to 10Gbit. Now in 2019 10Gbit is a overkill for me and upgrading my switches and PCs to 10Gbit is too expensive. However this may change in a few years.

Because of this and because I am going to terminate the CAT7 cables by myself (on patch panel (or keystone adapter) and network outlets in the rooms), I want to make sure that I did everything right and the termination is good enough that 10Gbit will work in the future.

So how can I verify/measure that 10Gbit will work?

student

Posted 2019-06-10T13:21:59.710

Reputation: 455

1A cheap option is to use a 10 Gbit NIC at each end of the run, and use iperf3 to test the bandwidth... You'll probably have issues with performance and may well not reach ~10 Gbit even on an ideal cable.... The "proper" option is to get (or borrow) a cable analyser (or a person with one) and do it "properly". – Attie – 2019-06-10T13:32:06.037

@Attie, is it correct that with CAT7 cables I can directly attach a (linux) laptop to each end with a 10 Gbit Adapter (one laptop at the patch panel and the other one on the network outlet)? – student – 2019-06-10T13:43:12.067

Yes I believe that should work fine, though with laptops and external dongles you're unlikely to see the desired 10 Gbit throughput... you can inspect frame / CRC errors which might help give an idea for the "quality" of the link using something like ethtool... though many NICs don't report issues up, so a zero reading isn't necessarily "perfect". – Attie – 2019-06-10T13:46:09.437

@student No external dongle is going to get full 10 Gb/s throughput. In theory USB3.1 Gen2, USB3.2 or Thunderbolt 3 should be able to take that bandwidth, but I have never seen a dongle that actually could do that. – Tonny – 2019-06-10T13:53:51.343

Answers

3

The answer is "not easily or cheap".

A (half decent) 10 Gb/s capable tester for copper wiring costs about $5000. You can get stuff from Alibaba or AliExpress for half that price, but quality is doubtful and that is still a lot of money.

So that leaves 3 options:

  • Hire someone who has the test-equipment and have them measure it for you. Probably going to cost you $500 to $1000 per day. Problem: If they find issues you will have to fix them and have it measured again. Could mean you have to hire them twice if there are more problems than you can fix "on the spot".
  • Hire only the equipment if such a service is available in your area. (I did this last year to check a new office for our company and it cost me about $300 a day. Was worth it as I needed to check about 40 connectors, which was doable in a a single day. I only needed to fix 3 problem connectors.
  • Get/borrow 2 computers and buy a 10 Gb/s capable NIC for each. Intel NIC's (if you can get them cheap) have 'Advanced Services' drivers available that allow basic cable-testing from within the driver with the 2 computers running as end-points of the cable. If you can't get Intel cheap just use any other brand and use iperf3 as Attie already mentioned in a comment.

Personally I wouldn't bother testing for 10 Gb/s, but just for 1 Gb/s using 2 Intel NICs with the special driver. Intel 1 Gb/s NICs are cheap. Many newer motherboard have them as standard and an Intel PCIe NIC costs about $30.
If the cabling/connectors are good enough to give quality 1 Gb/s you shouldn't have major issues with 10 Gb/s either.

EDIT (after seeing your comments about dongles)
USB dongles can't get 10 Gb/s throughput. In theory it should be possible with the latest generation USB3 and/or Thinderbolt dongles, but I have yet to see a dongle that actually managed to do the throughput they advertized. And don't forget that the USB controller inside the laptop also must be able to handle it.
PCIe (4x or 8x) NICs are the only 10 Gb/s devices that can actually reliably deliver 10 Gb/s. And that is still depending on if your motherboard, drivers and Operating System can take it. There is a reason 10 Gb/s is currently still mostly the domain of servers and high-end workstations (that often use server-grade motherboards): Desktop motherboards struggle. Laptop motherboard are are even worse.

Tonny

Posted 2019-06-10T13:21:59.710

Reputation: 19 919

The point about just testing 1Gbit is interesting. I thought from 1Gbit to 10Gbit there may me many many fine details one might do wrong in termination. It's the first time I terminate LAN cables. I try to do it very carefully, but don't think that this will bring the same quality as a specialized technician. – student – 2019-06-10T14:11:14.683

Maybe you could explain more in detail why you think that "If the cabling/connectors are good enough to give quality 1 Gb/s you shouldn't have major issues with 10 Gb/s either." – student – 2019-06-10T14:42:50.873

@student When it comes to putting the end-connectors or keystones on a cable the main problems are in wrong wire-mapping and bad/partial contacts. Both show up on 1 Gb/s just a badly as on 10 Gb/s. As long as you use 10 Gb/s rated cables/keystones/punchblocks/RJ45 connectors you are normally fine. If you can manage to make a cable run that allows 1 Gb/s without losses and can't do 10 Gb/s I really like to see how you did that. I've been a sysadmin for nearly 30 years and I've never encountered that miracle. – Tonny – 2019-06-10T16:03:06.010

With the finer points I meant things like: -One removed to much shielding of the individual wire pairs; - One untwisted the pairs too much; etc. But if you say that in practice a 1GB test should be enough, then this seems to be the easiest way to go – student – 2019-06-10T16:24:04.177

Asked: 2019-06-10T13:21:59.710

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Active: 2019-06-10T14:02:34.377