Why aren’t there any USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet adapters out there?

I’m looking for an adapter that will let me use a USB 3.0 port as a Gigabit Ethernet port. This is proving surprisingly hard to find! Is there some reason why this product is either unavailable or very obscure? Is there an online shop (US/Canada) where I can buy such an item?

Newegg, TigerDirect, NCIX, etc… don’t seem to carry such an item. I find this surprising since it will provide at least double the bandwidth—possibly quadruple—compared to a USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter.

intuited

Posted 2012-01-21T03:17:33.617

Reputation: 2 861

Firstly, no gigabit adapter plugged into a network will get anywhere near the maximum speed. USB 2 provides a theoretical maximum that is "good enough". For what it's worth, I have a USB 2 / ethernet adapter and it's good enough for me. I see around 200 - 250Mbps. – None – 2012-01-21T03:27:47.470

@Randolph West: I've found that USB2 tends to max out at about 30MB/s for drives; this agrees with your findings for the ethernet adaptor. Tom's Hardware got speeds of about 111MB/s on a gigabit network (compared to the theoretical maximum of 125 MB/s). My drives aren't that fast (yet), but they're at least twice 30MB/s, so it's worth it for me to use USB 3.

– intuited – 2012-01-21T04:01:13.110

Shopping recommendations are off-topic according to the FAQ.

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2012-01-21T04:20:36.743

2@techie007: Duly noted. The main point of the question is to ask why they are difficult to find, so the question is I think still valid. – intuited – 2012-01-21T04:41:47.707

@RandolphWest that's simply not true. Decent network kit,and crtically decent ethernet adapters, will happily saturate 1Gbps networks. I regularly get 100MB/s copying over gig ethernet to/from SSD equipped laptops. – Dean Smith – 2012-06-15T14:45:37.843

@Dean, I stand by my original comment. USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum of 60MB/s (480Mbps), from which I get ~30MB/s. Gigabit Ethernet has a theoretical maximum of 125MB/s (1000Mbps). It is impossible, even with the best equipment available, to saturate GbE with a USB 2.0 adapter. Your saturation is happening at the USB interface, or else you're on USB 3.0. Most likely, though, you're seeing artefacts from file caching. – None – 2012-06-18T05:15:45.530

Answers

We’ve also been looking for these for a long time, but no one seemed to make a USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter until just this year (2012).

But we needed them for a different purpose; we don’t do virtualization but needed to add second full Gigabit Ethernet port to the laptops we send out to be used as network diagnostics equipment. We used to use ExpressCard before, but laptops don’t have this slot anymore, so had to get the USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet adapter. All others wouldn’t actually run at full Gigabit Ethernet speed despite showing it as being Gigabit Ethernet capable. The throughput of USB 2.0 was too low.

As to why it took so long, the reason is very simple actually: Nobody thought this was a product worth making until Axis decided to do it. Once they made the chip, PCB layout and programming of the chip then at least 3 companies began making the Gigabit Ethernet adapters. All of them are based on the same ASIX AX88179 chip, but the one on the site above is the cheapest we could find.

Yukisan

Posted 2012-01-21T03:17:33.617

Reputation: 136

I know this an old question, but here are 2 products that I am aware of:

Nick Sinas

Posted 2012-01-21T03:17:33.617

Reputation: 161

Awesome! Very useful, but I don't know if I can accept this answer, since it doesn't address the question of why it took so long for a product like this to hit the market. OTOH I guess it proves that the product in question is not (any longer) unavailable. Note that the first link gives Availability as "Coming Soon" – intuited – 2012-08-21T19:12:15.043

Possible reasons:

USB 3.0 is a relatively new standard.
Gigabit Ethernet ports have been standard on motherboards for awhile and some some even have two. So it’s not like it was in the 1990s where a network adapter was virtually guaranteed to be a non-default/add-on item for a PC.
USB 1.1 and 2.0—and possibly to some extent 3.0, not sure—are CPU driven protocols: Great for convenience but bad when you want the maximum performance from a device such as a hard drive or a network adapter. No one usually tries to use USB for fast networking. Many who would need such an additional interface would rather install a PCI/PCI-Express card.

That being said I’m sure one will pop up eventually.

LawrenceC

Posted 2012-01-21T03:17:33.617

Reputation: 63 487

I've not noticed high CPU usage when accessing a USB hard drive. Are you saying this should be the case? – intuited – 2012-01-21T17:39:26.143

@intuited CPU usage from USB data transfer is typically in the low single digit percentages. What you mainly get is extra latency. The USB controller can't directly read/write data to memory or to disk. Instead, every time it receives a new chunk of data or finishing sending the one it was working on it has to ask the CPU to transfer data to/from the rest of the computer for it. Because the CPU can't respond instantly to the request there're frequent smaller pauses in USB data transfer. This is why USB2 maxes out at about 65-75% of its theoretical speed. – Dan is Fiddling by Firelight – 2012-02-17T19:55:08.300

This thread dates back to the early days of USB 3.0 usage, but I have kept a small list of USB 3.0 adapters I have come across for reference. Posting here just in case anyone is looking for such devices:

JakeGould

Posted 2012-01-21T03:17:33.617

Reputation: 38 217

This does exist, see this article: “ASIX releases the world’s first single-chip USB 3.0 to gigabit Ethernet controller”

However I’ve yet to see anyone build a product from this chip, which is disappointing.

Mike

Posted 2012-01-21T03:17:33.617

Reputation: 11

For the record, the accepted answer from September 2012 discusses products based on ASIX’s chipset. So 3 months after this answer was posted, products hit the market.

– JakeGould – 2015-03-31T02:53:11.437

1Interesting. Your answer would make a great comment, but doesn't really answer the question. – intuited – 2012-07-09T18:48:29.327