Question Asustor AS-U2.5G USB3 Type-C to 2.5GBASE-T ethernet adapter

[VirtualLarry]

ASUSTOR NAS - AS-U2.5G -

The AS-U2.5G uses USB Type-C, making it easy to connect to your laptop or desktop.

www.asustor.com

These are out now! Only $35.99 or so at Amazon, from a 3rd-party NAS seller.

(Edit: They raised their price to $45.99. Not such a great price anymore, I would go with the internal PCI-E 2.5GbE-T cards instead, for PCs, and only get the Asustor USB adapter if you actually own one of their supported NAS units.)

I was wondering when Asus would release something like this, seeing as how QNAP released their AQ-chipset USB3.x 5GbE-T adapter.

Note that while each mfg's respect USB-to-ethernet adapter works with their brand of NAS, they both also work with Windows, Linux, and MAC.

Asus's Adapter is based on a RealTek chipset. It's also less than half the price of the QNAP adapter. (and half the potential bandwidth).

Note that the Asustor model, is a tethered Type-C male connector, and does not include a Type-A adapter. (Which I found from a US seller for under $3 ea.)

Amazon.com: Asustor | AS-U2.5G | USB3.2 Gen 1 Type-C to 2.5GBase-T (RJ-45 2.5 Gigabit LAN) Adapter | for MacBook, Chromebook, Windows 10 or 8.1, and Mac OS: Industrial & Scientific

Buy Asustor | AS-U2.5G | USB3.2 Gen 1 Type-C to 2.5GBase-T (RJ-45 2.5 Gigabit LAN) Adapter | for MacBook, Chromebook, Windows 10 or 8.1, and Mac OS: USB Cables - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

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[SamirD]

Pretty sweet to see these starting to hit the market. Even though it's usb, it's actually an upgrade from most built-in nics at a cheaper price point than replacing the wired nic--I never thought I'd see that. I just hope this helps the adoption of 2.5/5Gbs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm curious if their full bandwidth can be utilized. Those cheap Chinese ASIX 88179 USB3 Type-C to 1GbE-T NICs, I can get 200Mbit/sec out of with my laptop, and the RealTek chipset Type-A adapters (which run warm, even without an ethernet cable connected), I can get to 100Mbit/sec on my laptop.

I can get 430Mbit/sec down, and 100Mbit/sec up through the Type-A RealTek Chinese generic USB ethernet adapters, on my Ryzen R5 3600 desktop, when not crunching / mining.

Still far short of a "true gigabit" (and I was getting 940MBit/sec down regularly with my Intel onboard PCI-E NIC, with my Gigabit FIOS internet connection).

I wonder if these NICs are running in "USB 3.0 mode" though, somehow, maybe. I had a USB3.0 AC1200 wifi dongle, that, without the special drivers that came with it, would default to USB2.0 mode, even in a USB3.0 port, somehow.

 

[Muadib]

Hey, wasn't it you who was going to go 10G? Why did you change?

 

[mxnerd]

Use USB Device Tree Viewer to check if a device is USB 3.0 or USB 2.0

USB Device Tree Viewer

How to check if a device is USB 3.0 or USB 2.0

How to check if a device is USB 3.0 or USB 2.0

www.addictivetips.com

Whether it's running at USB 3.0 speed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hey, wasn't it you who was going to go 10G? Why did you change?

My 10GbE-T Asus NIC died. Then a week later, the onboard Intel 1GbE-T ethernet died. So I'm stuck using a USB ethernet.

Someone suggested that the onboard LAN might have triggered an "anti-surge" self-resetting fuse, will try powering down completely soon.

Also, in my other thread about those cheap Chinese 1GbE-T (Type-C ASIX 88179 and Type-A RealTek), I had my Type-C ASIX USB adapter go dead on me suddenly. Right after I mentioned to someone on the phone that I got it working with the hub.

Plugging in the Type-C hub, still makes a Windows device-install sound, but the USB Type-C NIC does not, doesn't light up, doesn't light up even when plugged directly in without the hub, seems like it just suddenly died. Very suspicious timing though.

Edit: Plus, I invested in two managed 8-port 2.5GbE-T switches from D-Link, they have 10GbE-T SFP+ uplink ports, I bought a couple of transceivers so I could uplink to my Netgear that also has 8 1GbE-T ports, and 2x 10GbE-T ports.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, that is kind of wierd. Three NICs, across two machines, one laptop, one desktop, in the span of a week. Gremlins with etherkillers?

 

[mxnerd]

Wow, that's bad.

Did you contact ASUS for a return or post at their forum?

==

By the way, my gigabit USB 3.0 ethernet with 3 slots USB shows up as 2 USB hub devices - one USB 2.1 hun and one USB 3.0 hub. When plugged-in devices run at a different speed, they showed up in different hub. Apparently that Realtek 3.0 USB SD card reader I bought years ago is a fake USB 3.0 device.

 

[Muadib]

My 10GbE-T Asus NIC died. Then a week later, the onboard Intel 1GbE-T ethernet died. So I'm stuck using a USB ethernet.

Someone suggested that the onboard LAN might have triggered an "anti-surge" self-resetting fuse, will try powering down completely soon.

Also, in my other thread about those cheap Chinese 1GbE-T (Type-C ASIX 88179 and Type-A RealTek), I had my Type-C ASIX USB adapter go dead on me suddenly. Right after I mentioned to someone on the phone that I got it working with the hub.

Plugging in the Type-C hub, still makes a Windows device-install sound, but the USB Type-C NIC does not, doesn't light up, doesn't light up even when plugged directly in without the hub, seems like it just suddenly died. Very suspicious timing though.

Edit: Plus, I invested in two managed 8-port 2.5GbE-T switches from D-Link, they have 10GbE-T SFP+ uplink ports, I bought a couple of transceivers so I could uplink to my Netgear that also has 8 1GbE-T ports, and 2x 10GbE-T ports.

That's quite a bit of bad luck. Hopefully things will go better for you with 2.5GbE-T. I just got a 10GbE-T switch off of ebay that has been tricky for me to setup. I found out that I have to upgrade the firmware in order to get the 4 1GbE-T ports to work. I thought that was
weird, but the seller said that it was used by Amazon, and they wanted the 1GbE ports turn off. I have to setup an FTP server first, and then the upgrade should be cake. Waiting for Amazon to send my console cable, then I can get started.

 

[VirtualLarry]

An update. I received my two units, I plugged one into my Asustor NAS, and into my 2.5GbE-T switch, and then another one into my Windows 10 1903 PC, and into a cable directly into the switch.

Had some issues, because I also had a 1GbE-T RealTek-chipset NIC already installed.

For some reason, the initial driver, when I got the 2.5GbE Asustor NIC working, was showing as from 2016. But it worked. 260-270MB/sec reads from the Asustor RAID-5 4x10TB WD Red drive NAS, 170MB/sec writes.

I later fiddled with the drivers, and found out that these devices have a "CD driver device" included in them, with drivers. I got that to show up, and then installed those drivers, and they showed from 2018. But they seem to be worse quality. Had some issues, especially with the link speed defaulting down to 1.0GbE. Tried hard to fix, seems like when it happens, have to unplug Asustor adapter, and plug it back in. Simply choosing the adapter, and selecting "Disable", followed by "Enable" didn't work, as it did with my onboard NIC (before it died) to "fix" my onboard 1GbE-T NIC downgrading to 100Mbit for some reason. (NOT home-made cables, pre-made from Coboc, Link-something, etc., mostly CAT6, some CAT5e.)

Edit: It was at 2.5Gb last night, just checked Status on the NIC, showing 1.0Gb again. Sigh. The RealTek drivers included with it, are crap. I wish there were updated Internet drivers for it, or that I could possibly get back the 2016 drivers, which I think were from Microsoft.

Edit: I "rolled back" the driver, same date, same driver version, WAY more "Advanced" options now, like offloading and stuff, that weren't showing up before.

Also, still 1.0Gb.

I had to physically unplug the adapter and re-plug it to get a 2.5Gb link back.

Maybe some sort of link-power-management gone haywire?

Edit: Darn. I had disabled "Energy Efficient Ethernet", "Green Ethernet", and "Gigabit Lite", and still, it's at 1.0Gb link speed now.

Edit: Hmm, they have a setting for "Idle Power Saving", lets "Disable" that, and wait an hour.

---

My bad, Asus had 06/2019 drivers for their Asustor 2.5Gb USB NIC, they were a RealTek driver package, all-in-one for their USB NICs. I installed it, and it re-detected, again at 1.0Gb. I unplugged the device, plugged it back in, back to 2.5Gb. Let's see if it stays.

 

[Muadib]

That's one reason that I stuck with using intel hardware when it comes to ethernet. Hopefully your new drivers will work like their supposed to.

 

[mxnerd]

@VirtualLarry , you definitely need to install latest the Realtek/ASUS driver. My Realtek with 3 slots gigabit had similar issues, but different. It also sometimes will show a CD partition with old driver when it was plugged in, then disconnected. Then plugged in, then disconnected. It went on and on.

I then updated to latest driver and wrap the USB connector with aluminum tape to make the connection a bit tight and it finally stopped he endless connect-disconnect cycles.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, seems like the link speed is holding steady at 2.5Gb now, so far, for the last hour or two.

 

[mxnerd]

Real world performance. In Chinese though.

Asustor 又有新嘢-USB 2.5GbE dongle

本帖最後由 pctine 於 2019-8-31 00:45 編輯 10G 網卡&Switch 太貴, 而家 Asustor 推出最新嘅 USB 2.5GbE 網卡. $250蚊就得. 下載 (30.04 KB) ...

www.hkepc.com

==

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[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, I was getting 270MB/sec reads and 176MB/sec writes to a RAID-5 of 4x10TB WD Red (5400RPM) drives, in a 6104T, using the Asustor 2.5GbE-T USB3 adapter to a 2.5GbE-T switch, to my PC with same adapter on the other end.

Edit: I'm starting to think, that the dropping down to 1.0Gb speed on the link, is due to the chipset in this adapter, thermal-throttling.

When I pulled my PC out of my cubby (with the dongle in the back), it was QUITE warm.

 

[abufrejoval]

I got the RealTek 2.5 Gbit stuff in two flavors, one from Delock in a very solid if somewhat clunky metal chassis, another from Club3D with more plastic but subjectively lighter weight: Both deliver identical speeds 295MB/s file copies on something like a big VM with current Windows 10 on both sides (storage is NVMe or SATA-SSD RAID0 with >1.5GB/s write/read bandwidth and good for ~900MB/s on 10Gbit Ether).

Delock was the first to sell in Germany and is a little pricier. It only comes as a USB-C device whereas Club3D sells USB-A and USB-C variants: You better pick the right match, because passive adapters between these two form factors typically only transfer USB2 power, not enough to enable high-speed modes: I found out the hard way...

Today I got to play with a QNAP 5GBit USB3 adapter that uses an Aquantia 5Gbit chipset: As expected, it's not quite double speed, but 440MB/s is just a little below what I hoped for. Given the internal complexity of the adapter (I believe there is a PCIe bridge in the middle), it's probably quite ok.

Please note that in both cases I used 9k jumbo frames and all available offloads; at default frame size bandwidth on the QNAP drops to 400MB/s. The file-server uses a 10Gbit Aquantia NIC and the switch is an NBase-T Buffalo 12-port using three slabs of Aquantia silicon inside.

On the Linux side I currently have to compile a source code driver for the RealTek on CentOS (which I has to patch a tiny bit to get it to compile, too), I hope that the QNAP/Aquantia will do better, but I haven't tried yet.

The QNAP and the Delock come with built-in USB storage for Windows drivers, the Club3D comes with a µCD, in all cases Windows drivers are available online.

The QNAP is very solid but also a bit massive, it almost seems a second power-brick next to an ultrabook and may use significant amounts of juice. I doubt you'll want to use it without an external power supply on your notebook and in fact I plan to use it to upgrade a server that lacks slots, but could use more bandwidth.

As a mobile companion I'd recommend the Club3D variant of the RealTek, which does well enough and is a much better pysical fit for size and weight, while power consumption may remain an issue.

BTW: The RealTek chips will go to a low-power mode on a USB2 interface and provide connectivity at around 30MB/s, which can be rather helpful in the field. I haven't tried this with the QNAP, but I'd doubt it even powers up.

 

[abufrejoval]

Note that the Asustor model, is a tethered Type-C male connector, and does not include a Type-A adapter. (Which I found from a US seller for under $3 ea.)

Amazon.com: Asustor | AS-U2.5G | USB3.2 Gen 1 Type-C to 2.5GBase-T (RJ-45 2.5 Gigabit LAN) Adapter | for MacBook, Chromebook, Windows 10 or 8.1, and Mac OS: Industrial & Scientific

Buy Asustor | AS-U2.5G | USB3.2 Gen 1 Type-C to 2.5GBase-T (RJ-45 2.5 Gigabit LAN) Adapter | for MacBook, Chromebook, Windows 10 or 8.1, and Mac OS: USB Cables - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

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Be careful: These super cheap USB-A/C adapters don't transport USB3 power levels so using the USB-C 2.5GBit adapter on a USB3-A socket drops it into USB2 compatibility mode with only around 300-400MBit/s transfer speeds, below Gbit effective bandwidth.

I expect similar behavior from any cable selling below €10, because you need a power management chip or an active cable to do it right.

Since I was desperate to test the first 2.5GBit adapter I could purchase (USB-C only), I got an active USB-C/A adapter, but it was another €14.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, there was a brief time that I was getting 30-40MB/sec writes to my NAS, but I don't think that it was USB2.0 doing that, specifically. (I could be wrong.)

It was showing a link speed of 1.0Gb, and was transferring 110MB/sec from the Asustor NAS.

Just don't like the Asustor 2.5GbE- USB3 adapter suddenly down-grading the link speed from 2.5Gb to 1.0Gb out of the blue, seemingly after some random period of time, until I unplug and re-plug it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Be careful: These super cheap USB-A/C adapters don't transport USB3 power levels so using the USB-C 2.5GBit adapter on a USB3-A socket drops it into USB2 compatibility mode with only around 300-400MBit/s transfer speeds, below Gbit effective bandwidth.

I expect similar behavior from any cable selling below €10, because you need a power management chip or an active cable to do it right.

Since I was desperate to test the first 2.5GBit adapter I could purchase (USB-C only), I got an active USB-C/A adapter, but it was another €14.

I really don't think that's true. I've heard, that the USB Type-C to Type-A adapters, if you plug the USB-C in the "wrong way round", you will get USB2.0 speeds, or whatnot, but when it's working, I have no problems getting 2.5Gb (270MB/sec reads) through my adapter.

 

[abufrejoval]

I really don't think that's true. I've heard, that the USB Type-C to Type-A adapters, if you plug the USB-C in the "wrong way round", you will get USB2.0 speeds, or whatnot, but when it's working, I have no problems getting 2.5Gb (270MB/sec reads) through my adapter.

Let's just say, your mileage may vary.

Even if I was a bit wary, having had to deal with USB3 power woes for years, I first went with a passive USB-C to USB-A adapter that also had the advantage of being extremely compact, assuming like you, that little could go wrong at a cable length of practically zero. I got a dual pack off Amazon for around €5 and they where nicely blue, advertised as USB3 through-and-through.

But no matter how I turned them, USB2 speed is what HWinfo reported for the DeLock RealTek 2.5 Gbit NIC after connecting them to my various notebooks (and ~30MB/s throughput), unless I used a USB-C port (without the plug-converter).

I then bought the active USB-C/USB-A adapter which includes a power management chip for USB3 and voilà a 5GBit connection was negotiated at USB level and with 9k jumbo frames I reached 295MB/s on big file copies.

You might get lucky, but if not, that could be why and HWinfo (or a similar low level tool) will allow you to track down what the host and the Ethernet adapter actually *negotiate* at the USB level, after plugging.

I could have just been a rip-off victim, but in a way, it also makes sense, because such a plug, no matter how short, is still a cable in USB terms and therefore must conform to USB power management rules. And those require negotiating for the higher levels of power that USB 3 supports, but won't start with, because that would potentially fry a USB2-only peripheral.

So careful guys & gals, be sure to think, test and measure to ensure things actually are as you wanted them to be.