--- title: I thought my NAS drives were the bottleneck, but 2.5GbE... description: Upgrading a home lab and workstation to 2.5GbE networking revealed that NAS hard drives were never the true bottleneck. Two Seagate Exos 7E8 drives in a ZFS... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-my-nas-drives-were-the-bottleneck-but-2-5gbe-networking-proved-me-wrong-tsueyvktp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I thought my NAS drives were the bottleneck, but 2.5GbE networking proved me wrong | daily.dev og:description: Upgrading a home lab and workstation to 2.5GbE networking revealed that NAS hard drives were never the true bottleneck. Two Seagate Exos 7E8 drives in a ZFS... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-my-nas-drives-were-the-bottleneck-but-2-5gbe-networking-proved-me-wrong-tsueyvktp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/tSueyvkTp.png og:image:alt: I thought my NAS drives were the bottleneck, but 2.5GbE networking proved me wrong og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I thought my NAS drives were the bottleneck, but 2.5GbE networking proved me wrong **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Upgrading a home lab and workstation to 2.5GbE networking revealed that NAS hard drives were never the true bottleneck. Two Seagate Exos 7E8 drives in a ZFS mirror can sustain reads well beyond 2.5GbE's throughput, so the real limits are elsewhere: a router with only one 2.5 Gbps LAN port, gigabit-only wired links downstairs, and Wi-Fi devices that fall well short of their theoretical speeds. Extending true multi-gig throughout an entire household turns out to be a long and expensive chain of upgrades. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Can NAS hard drives actually saturate a 2.5GbE network link? Yes, easily. Two 8TB Seagate Exos 7E8 7200 RPM drives rated at 237 MiB/s sustained transfer each, when run as a ZFS mirror, can distribute sequential reads across both disks and push well past the throughput a 2.5GbE link can carry, meaning the drives are not the limiting factor during file transfers. _Sizing a NAS drive setup against your network speed is easier with real-world benchmarks surfaced on daily.dev._ ### What cabling do I need to run 2.5GbE or 5GbE at home? 2.5GbE runs on standard Cat 5e cabling, while 5GbE requires Cat 6. Both speeds derive from the 10GBASE-T standard's PHY transmission but run at a much lower signal rate, which reduces the demands placed on the cable itself compared to full 10 Gigabit Ethernet. _Planning a multi-gig home network upgrade gets easier when the cabling tradeoffs are clear on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I upgraded my NAS to 10 Gigabit and immediately discovered the bottleneck nobody warns you about](https://daily.dev/posts/i-upgraded-my-nas-to-10-gigabit-and-immediately-discovered-the-bottleneck-nobody-warns-you-about-wxz34mogx) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [10GbE networking is a trap, unless you're using it for this one thing](https://daily.dev/posts/10gbe-networking-is-a-trap-unless-you-re-using-it-for-this-one-thing-c8jb5uoph) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [I built my NAS from an old gaming PC, and nothing released since has justified replacing it](https://daily.dev/posts/i-built-my-nas-from-an-old-gaming-pc-and-nothing-released-since-has-justified-replacing-it-fvmm85agq) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [There's still no point in gigabit broadband](https://daily.dev/posts/there-s-still-no-point-in-gigabit-broadband-v51pes3t5) · Terence Eden · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [Debugging my new network, when 10 Gigabit Ethernet Runs at 300 Megabits](https://daily.dev/posts/debugging-my-new-network-when-10-gigabit-ethernet-runs-at-300-megabits-intohpmzt) · Scott Hanselman · 3 upvotes · 2 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#networking](https://daily.dev/tags/networking), [#homelab](https://daily.dev/tags/homelab) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-my-nas-drives-were-the-bottleneck-but-2-5gbe-networking-proved-me-wrong-tsueyvktp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I thought my NAS drives were the bottleneck, but 2.5GbE networking proved me wrong","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-my-nas-drives-were-the-bottleneck-but-2-5gbe-networking-proved-me-wrong-tsueyvktp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-my-nas-drives-were-the-bottleneck-but-2-5gbe-networking-proved-me-wrong-tsueyvktp"},"datePublished":"2026-08-21T14:00:41.006Z","dateModified":"2026-08-21T14:03:28.617Z","description":"Upgrading a home lab and workstation to 2.5GbE networking revealed that NAS hard drives were never the true bottleneck. 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