Before this, I didn’t really care whether the LAN speed should be Gigabit or 10 Gigabit, because I didn’t need to process large files online. At most, I would watch 4K videos, and files of dozens of GB could be viewed smoothly on a Gigabit network.
However, since this year, I have gradually increased the output of video content. Then, the 256G Mac mini reminds me from time to time that the hard disk space is cramped. Then a comment from a netizen at Station B aroused my interest:
Although there is no switch, the router and Mac mini are all Gigabit interfaces, but my QNAP NAS has a 5GbE network port and a Category 8 network cable. Just buy a 5G network card and connect the NAS and Mac mini by wire.
So there was this failed unpacking.
Unable to manually set up Mac mini compatibility
There are many Gigabit and 2.5G network cards on the market, and most of them are affordable, only a few dozen yuan. 5G Type-C to RJ45 network port external network cards are a little more expensive. The Ruiyin 5G network card I bought was 155 yuan after the discount.
Let me start with the conclusion: Ruiyin's 5G network card is not friendly to Mac mini. There is no 5G option, and you can't set parameters such as connection speed and jumbo frames. Because it is automatically connected, sometimes the handshake speed can't even reach 1 Gigabit, which is outrageous.
(It is useless to set it to manual. When you select 2.5G, it will still change back to automatic)
What’s even more outrageous is that when I checked with customer service whether it was supported, they responded like this:
Then an official technician called me and told me: Yes.
No matter how I set it up, it still felt wrong. When I called Ruiyin 400 again, the guy who answered the phone told me that it really couldn’t be done…
It is recommended that this company standardize its sales pitch.
In order to see the real LAN connection speed, I installed librespeed in the NAS. The following is the fastest speed captured:
Download speed: 3551M
Upload speed: 3064M
Judging from the average speed, whether on the M2 or M4 Mac mini, the actual level of this 5G external network card is basically equivalent to 2.5G.
Therefore, friends who want to buy an external network card for Mac mini should pay attention and be sure to check the compatibility of the network card.
Normal transfer speed under Windows takes off
Unlike macOS, under Windows, Ruiyin's network card finally has 5G features.
First, simply configure it according to the instructions, and then this is the LAN connection speed:
Then I used a 17G video file to test the writing speed of a 4T mechanical hard drive, a 16T mechanical hard drive, and a sata3 SSD.
(1) 4T mechanical hard disk
The fluctuation is quite large, I chose a peak, which is about 240M/s. The trough is about tens of megabytes.
(2) 16T mechanical hard disk
In theory, the 16T hard drive should be faster, but the actual maximum speed is only slightly over 200M, but the advantage is that the transmission speed is relatively stable.
(3) SATA3 SSD
Unfortunately, my old antique NAS does not support NVMe. The theoretical value of Sata3.0 is only 500M+, so it is normal for the actual write speed to fluctuate around 350M.
(4) Wi-Fi file writing speed
Finally, let's take a quick look at the file writing speed under Wi-Fi. When writing to a 4TB hard drive, it only reaches about 40% of the mechanical hard drive writing speed.
Unfortunately, the wireless connection is not very stable. If it can be stabilized at around 100M/s, it will not be a big problem to smoothly edit low-bitrate 4K videos.
In fact, the price/performance ratio of this 5G network card from Realtek is quite good. What is puzzling is that the 5G network card from WisDpi (299 yuan on Taobao), which also uses the Realtek RTL8157 chip, is sold as "supporting M4 Mac mini". It's a pity. I hope they can solve the usage problem under macOS system from a technical point of view as soon as possible.
In fact, Ruiyin is not the only one. As long as you are not using this type of external network card under Windows, you should pay attention to the compatibility of the device. For example, if you want to use it on NAS or Linux devices, etc., you must confirm it with the merchant first.
Okay, if you find it useful, just follow it.
Friends who are willing to experience it can take a look at——
