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Unreliable 10 Gbe with my new Mac Studio

I just received my new Mac Studio a week ago and so far have had very bad LAN speeds. Previously I had an iMac 5k with a Thunderbolt Pro dock with 10Gbe -> Unifi Flex XG switch -> Synology NAS with 10 Gbe all using Cat 6 cables. That was reliable. Now I replaced the iMac and dock with the Mac Studio and sometimes get 700Mbps read/write and sometimes get 400 Mbps and sometimes get 30. I learned that Cat 6 does not officially support 10Gbe but Cat 6A does. I then learnt Cat 7 is even better. I have replaced my cables with brand new Cat 7 from my Mac Studio to the switch (50') and then Cat 7 (3') from the switch to my NAS.

I installed iperf3 on the Mac Studio and NAS to test. Sometimes I get 9.3, sometimes 4.7, and sometimes under 1. Sometimes a reboot resolves the issue, sometimes re-mounting my network drive resolves the issue. Nothing has been consistent. I am looking for any other suggestion to stabilize my 10Gbe network.

I have tried disabling Wifi to confirm I am using the right network card.
I have tried hardcoding the hardware to 10Gbase-T.
I have disabled energy saver (not sure how to disable it on the NIC itself).
I have tested with a new user.

Sometimes it registers at 10G

Other times it registers as 5G

I am also using Blackmagic Disk Speed to test performance. Again sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Any suggestions are greatly apprecaited.

Mac Studio, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 1, 2022 7:23 AM

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Agustis88 Author

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Posted on Oct 11, 2022 9:07 AM

Just to update this thread and potentially help others, the issue was actually power saving in the Mac Studio. The Mac Studio was throttling down the NIC to save energy (and maybe heat), and my assumption is that it was not restoring full throttle after waking up. Once I changed: "full duplex, energy-efficient-ethernet" to "full duplex, flow-control" my system has been reliable and consistent with 10Gbe speeds. I hope I can save someone else some time.

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Agustis88 Author

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Oct 1, 2022 9:09 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

It my assumption that the "automatic link speed" was the same as running ifconfig en0 | media. It could be different. From the Ubiquiti managed dashboard, I also see the link speed is sometimes reporting as 5 Gbe, and then sometimes at 10 Gbe (where the NAS is always reporting at 10 Gbe).

ATM, I experiencing 650Mbps write and when I run netstat -l en0 I don't see any errors. I also ran another Blackmagic Speed Test and monitored with netstat and it didn't report errors. Next time it drops below 5Gbps I will run netstat while running the speed test.

Agustis88 Author

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Oct 1, 2022 9:14 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I mentioned I disabled Wifi because in another thread they suggested this. I have set the service order as you mentioned with Ethernet as my top most connection. My goal was just trying to remove things that could potentially muddy the water.

Regarding using IP. I have tried both the DNS, and the IP. I have more consistency using the IP, but I still get slow speeds when mounting the share using the IP address.

Oct 1, 2022 9:22 AM in response to Agustis88

<< Regarding using IP. I have tried both the DNS, and the IP. I have more consistency using the IP, but I still get slow speeds when mounting the share using the IP address. >>

I don't understand what you are saying at all.

Please elaborate.

Agustis88 Author

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Oct 11, 2022 11:13 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Yes Grant you are correct. I posted the screen shot because I miss-read your initial reply as power saving on the OS itself and not on the NIC. This is why I mentioned changing Power Saving in settings. This was a follow up as I mentioned originally I didn't know how to disable it on the NIC itself. Now I know.

Oct 11, 2022 11:16 AM in response to Agustis88

Thanks for clarifying that subtle difference.

I will try to tighten up my language in future suggestions on this topic.

Your suggestions are appreciated!

We all have something to add to support each other here on the Apple Support Communites.

Agustis88 Author

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Oct 1, 2022 7:48 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for the reply, but that is cut and paste from another thread. I also stated that I am using Cat 7.

Oct 1, 2022 8:20 AM in response to Agustis88

what is intended to be represented by the minus sign in a blue circle to the right of your switch? have you spliced two cables together?

Agustis88 Author

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Oct 1, 2022 9:28 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

When mounting the share in finder, I have used the name, and IP. smb://ds1621 and also smb://192.168.2.30.

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Unreliable 10 Gbe with my new Mac Studio