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Ethernet is Still Going Strong After 50 Years
(spectrum.ieee.org)
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this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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It works and supports bandwidth well beyond what the vast majority of usecases could ever saturate -- and we get new iterations all the time which increase that ceiling. RJ45 connectors and their respective ports are everywhere. Sure, we have "better" types of cables and connectors for networking, but they're almost always a staggering amount of overkill for the application and are not as common.
And don't make a satisfying click
LC connectors on fiber make a nice click too, that's the type of ethernet cabling I work with at my dayjob.
When did RJ45 last got a relevant update? 1 Gb/s is more than 2 decades old. It is still way more than enough for almost everyone. And it does not need a lot of power to operate.
Well you can run 10 Gb/s over RJ45 these days too
How much power does that need to run? What does it cost? How many people could actually use that bandwidth? How does it generally compare to fiber optic?
It's not about cost or outright performance. A cat6 patch cable is compatible with anything from a 10BASE-T intercom to a 10GBASE-T connection that can only be saturated with the most cutting-edge hardware (my desktop literally can't write to its M.2 drive this fast!)
So if I'm running wires through walls, I'm choosing cat6 because it'll work for basically any device, rather than constraining myself to exotic SFP connectors on both ends.
Fiber theoretically future-proofs you for 100GE, but let's be real, that shit is HELLA expensive and literally no consumer hardware can benefit from it. Basically if your usecase requires fiber, you'll know.
I think you are confused. Any modern hardware can easily saturate 10Gbps - it's only ~954MiB/sec.
And what use case is there for a wired connection like this? Next to nobody needs that. I, engineer/gamer/PC enthusiasts/bla, know zero people who ran wires to their PC like I did, despite certain advantages with LAN in gaming. You can imagine how many people I know that not only run the wires but then also actually need more than the standard 1Gb/s.
It is/would be a waste of resources and not needed for almost everyone. That is what I am saying. That is why we do not see any significant development in the last 20 years, it is still the same 1 Gb/s like back then.
I've ran cat 6a in my home as when I'm sure to upgrade the devices I don't want to have to redo all the cabling. I am looking at moving up from 1 Gb/s already as I can easily max out the connection when transferring data over the network, like a backup to a different system.
Hell, I'm pretty sure we have ISPs here in EU thag offer 2Gb WAN.
In terms of significant developments, more and more PCs are currently making the move to 2.5gb networking too
Maxing out 1 Gb/s was no issue with HDDs 15 years ago. Maxing out 10 Gb/s is no issue with SSDs today. 1 GB/s is nothing for them. You would need 100 GB/s to have a buffer for the next 3(?) years, then it will be maxed out again.
In any case, a backup can take 1 or 10 hours, seems irrelevant in a non-commercial environment. Since people will be backing up to large HDDs in the foreseeable future, 1 Gb/s is just fine. 18 TB HDDs could potentially be 2x faster, say 200 MB/s. Not much to gain.
On a side note, I put cat7 everywhere back in the day. Maybe 150 meters.
The whole 1gb is fine sounds like the old "nobody will need more than 64k of ram" is all
It has been almost 25 years and it is still perfectly fine for almost everyone. By the time it will not be good enough anymore, those "almost everyone" are not going to run cable anywhere. Wireless has long replaced wired connections for the vast majority of people. If anything, it will have to be based on USB-C.
And while RAM went up and up and up back then, 16 GB have been standard for 10 years now. The development is at a point with diminishing returns.
They are coming out with new cabling standards to allow multi gbps over extended distances. There is still a lot of room for growth. You are right that nothing more is needed for the average use case though.