If you're thinking about upgrading your home network to multi-gig speeds, welcome to the future. Gigabit has served its purpose for years, and now it's time to move on to faster connectivity for your wired devices. That's especially true if you're planning to upgrade to the faster speeds of Wi-Fi 6E or 7, as you'll want a fast backhaul to address potential bottlenecks .

But just how fast is fast, when you're talking about multi-gig networking? Do you really need the 10GbE glory, or can you go with the more affordable 2.5GbE? I've got both running in my home network, and apart from a few edge cases, I think most people can get away with 2.5GbE for a good few years.

Let's talk rough numbers

Upgrades don't come cheap

Before I dive in, every home network is different, and answers like this can't possibly capture every nuance. 2.5GbE is a more practical choice for the majority of home users, who have happily been using gigabit links until now. It's still enough bandwidth for some level of future-proofing, and the hardware you buy can be used on less-critical links in the future.

Pricing is also wildly variable, whether you go for consumer-level devices, prosumer devices, ex-enterprise devices, or something a little more robust. Expect to pay 2x to 3x the price overall for 10GbE-capable hardware throughout your network. Possibly more, depending on how many ports you need and if you want Power-over-Ethernet (spoiler: you probably do).

And network appliances are only part of the equation

Assuming your existing infrastructure isn't up to the task, pulling new cables for 10GbE speeds involves more than buying the physical cabling, whether that's twisted-pair Category 6, 6a, or above, or fiber. I'm in the middle of upgrading sections, and the extra cost for keystone jacks, faceplates, and termination tools has turned what seemed a small job into a much larger one.

That's without having to pull cables, pay for an installer, or anything more involved, like adding new conduits. Electricity costs for 10GbE will be higher, as the ports consume several times as much power. And don't forget the cost of adding 10GbE network cards to your client devices can add up quickly, even if you pick the cheapest option.

Practical considerations

Compatibility with existing cable infrastructure is a big plus

If your home already has cable drops, the chances are they're Cat5e unless they were done very recently. That's good news if you're planning on 2.5GbE, as it should work without a hitch for the normal lengths of building runs, even if they're dropped from your attic to the basement.

And, well, very few home devices can sustain 10GbE transfer speeds, and even then, they won't be running at that speed all the time. The advantage of wired networking is that each cable is full-duplex and dedicated, so even devices that require more bandwidth won't affect the rest of the network. The only potential slowdowns could occur if the network switch reaches its backplane limits or if the transfer between your wired backhaul and wireless access point is limited in some way.

There's always an exception (or two) where 10GbE makes sense

I know many of you reading have home labs, or expanded network storage devices running media servers and other high-bandwidth tasks. And the more I load up on Proxmox nodes, the more I realize that sharing a single gigabit or 2.5GbE NIC isn't going to cut it long-term. If that sounds familiar, then 10GbE is probably already on your upgrade roadmap, even if it's planned for a few select network segments.

That's what I'm about to set up, with fast links between my fiber box, NAS, servers, and desktop clients, along with a backhaul to the Wi-Fi 7 access points I plan to install on each floor. Some of that is due to daily backups from my desktops and server to the NAS, as well as planned future use, so the backhaul between each floor will be 10GbE. That way, I can install managed switches on each floor and run cable drops where and when they're needed.

Upgrading to 2.5GbE allows future-proofing without overcommitting

A ton of networked devices come across my desk, and most use 2.5 GbE networking cards. That's not to say that it will be the same forever, but it took many years to get to this point, and there are still some gigabit stragglers. The good news is that many network switches that support 2.5GbE also support 5GbE now, because of multi-gig specifications, and they often have one or two 10GbE ports for completeness.

Those will come in handy for wired backhaul in future upgrades, and there's nothing that says you can't mix and match speeds in your home network, as long as the expected speeds on the two ends of each cable match. And because you'll be able to use your existing wiring infrastructure, the overall cost and time involved with the upgrade to 2.5GbE will be significantly lower.