IOCREST USB4 to 10GbE Adapter Review

Last updated on 05 Jul 2024 📧 Subscribe
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1 Review of the AliExpress IoCrest USB4-to-10GbE Adapter
1.1 Buying the Adapter: A Quick Note !!!
2 IOCREST USB4-to-10GbE Adapter Review Conclusion
3 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Review of the AliExpress IoCrest USB4-to-10GbE Adapter

Why is a USB 10GbE network adapter such a big deal? USB NICs have been around for literally decades, so a new network adapter that takes advantage of USB can’t be that exciting, right? Well, if you’ve been in the market to buy a network upgrade for more modest and streamlined systems that lack PCIe slot expandability, then chances are you have noticed the severe lack of USB options in the market. Although a number of domestic-level systems for home and business have started rolling out with greater than gigabit network connectivity, when it comes to expanding older generation devices (or even scaling up relatively modern devices to take advantage of greater network speeds), the range of solutions on the market is actually pretty limited. A few years ago, this was alleviated slightly by the rollout of Thunderbolt to 10G adapters arriving in the market, but because of Intel’s restrictive use of Thunderbolt certification and numerous hurdles in adding Thunderbolt to the majority of devices, these are pretty expensive adapters and also have zero backwards compatibility. Fast forward to now, and thanks to the more open-ended compatibility that USB4 features (supporting USB and Thunderbolt 3/4), the idea of a 10GbE USB-connected network adapter has become a reality.

So, the new IO crest USB4-10G adapter is now available. Although I’m sure we will see rebranded versions of this flooding the market relatively soon, alongside established players like QNAP and Sonnet rolling out their alternatives, let’s take a deep dive into the device and find out whether it deserves to be your next network upgrade purchase.

Buying the Adapter: A Quick Note !!!

The adapter is currently available from several different retailers, but is more widely available at the time of writing on AliExpress. Pricing on this adapter will fluctuate rapidly, and I have seen it retailed for as little as $82 all the way up to $140. For this review, I purchased a unit at £72 without tax. It arrived in under 8 days, and although the packaging is phenomenally bare-bones, I can vouch for the fact it arrived intact. Below are a few suggested links to retailers selling the USB4 to 10GbE adapter that you may find useful. Using these links will result in a small commission fee to NAScompares, which helps us keep doing what we do.

Where to Buy?

 

Given the similarities between this adapter and the Thunderbolt 3 to 10GbE alternatives in the market, this IO crest device takes a slightly different approach in its hardware. Arriving in a much chunkier surrounding heatsink, this device has the network connection and the USB input on the same side.

Despite the large look of the thing and its firm metal exterior, it is surprisingly light. It’s really the size more than anything that might bother some users.

Currently, the device is only available in copper/10GBASE-T hardware configurations, but almost certainly we’re going to see SFP/fiber versions of this adapter in due course. The copper 10G connection supports auto-negotiation, so you will still be able to take advantage of lesser 5G/2.5G/1G connections when utilizing this adapter.

The USB Type-C port, however, is a mixture of good and bad news. On the one hand, USB Type-C on this adapter allows for power delivery, meaning that adding this 10G connection does not require any additional power input to establish a connection with a 10GbE network. Additionally, you can utilize this adapter on a modern USB4 system, as well as on a Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 system too.

Given the big price difference between this USB4 10G adapter and established Thunderbolt-specific adapters from ATO, Sonnet, and QNAP costing much more, this allows for a greater degree of flexibility and affordability versus those Thunderbolt options. A big part of this is down to the increased compatibility that USB4 brings and a much easier threshold of integration compared with previous generation Thunderbolt client devices.

Specification Details
Model IOcrest USB4 to 10GbE Ethernet Network Adapter
Compatibility USB4, Thunderbolt 3/4, Windows, Linux, Mac OS
Interface USB-C (Thunderbolt 3)
Ethernet Port 10Gb/s, 5Gb/s, 2.5Gb/s, 1Gb/s, 100Mb/s Base-T
Power Bus powered
Jumbo Frame Support Up to 16 KB
Operating Power per Port 2.5W (10GBASE-T), 1.5W (5GBASE-T), 1W (1GBASE-T)
Advanced Features AVB, PTP/1588v2, Sync-E, MSI, MSI-X, INTx, NC-SI
Protocols Supported MCTP, IEEE 802.3an/bz/ab/u/q/x/az
Temperature Range (Operation) 0°C to +108°C
Temperature Range (Storage) -40°C to +110°C
Chipset ID AQC113
Number of Ports 1 Port
Transfer Rate 10000Mbps
Dimensions 102.7mm x 40.4mm x 25.6mm
OS Compatibility Windows 10/11, Linux Kernel 3.10 and later, Mac OS
Additional Notes Does not support Type-C, USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 interfaces

However, the bad news is that despite it being a USB4 adapter, it does not support the usual backwards compatibility of the USB4 port on your laptop, NAS, or desktop computer. In essence, this means that you cannot utilize this device with a USB 2, USB 3, USB 3.1, or USB 3.2 port. This is going to be quite a blow for users who were looking forward to a USB to 10G adapter for older legacy hardware that does not accommodate PCIe upgrades. A big part of the logic behind this is USB4 supporting Gen4 architecture and the extra bandwidth and negotiation that it brings, but it’s still going to be a bitter pill for users who have been waiting for a USB-convenient option to scale up to 10GbE networks. This is made especially galling when you know that USB 3.2 Gen 2 gives 1,000 MB per second and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 provides 2,000 MB per second, yet neither of these options can be used with this 10G/1000 MB adapter.

(See Video Below to Learn More – or visit the article on the QNAP USB4-to-10GbE Adapter HERE)

This device does not represent the end of the road for this kind of adapter, though. At Computex 2024, QNAP demoed the first of a large range of USB4 to network adapters that they plan to introduce in the next 6 to 8 months. These began with a USB4 to 10GbE copper and SFP adapter but plan on scoping out towards dual 10GbE adapters and even 25GbE adapters too. Needless to say, these will be considerably more expensive and no doubt are going to require a great deal of tooling before they hit retail, but at least we know that this is not going to be the only adapter in the market for USB users.

Opening up the adapter, by removing two screws at either end of the casing, reveals that the internals do not have any kind of active fan. This means that there will be no noise during operation and cooling internally is managed via passive dissipation through strategically placed internal heat sinks into the surrounding casing.

Indeed, the inside of the USB4 10G adapter only comprises two core pieces: a main M.2 mounting board that connects to the USB4 port, and a separate M.2 PCB that has the 10G copper connection mounted.

The main Aquantia controller that requires the AQC113 driver to be used is placed under a full-width black heatsink. This heatsink has thermal paste but also additional adhesive to keep it firmly in place to connect with the external casing. This means that removing that black heatsink will likely damage the adapter, so we have decided to hold off on going for a deeper dive into the internals for now until we’ve completed our testing.

Putting the device back together, we decided to conduct multiple tests with a 10G NAS system and a Windows 10 NVMe-based laptop with USB4 connectivity to see what output we could get.

We set the NAS up (an Asustor Flashstor 12 Pro with 10GbE and 4x Gen 3 SSDs in RAID 5) directly connected to the adapter, which was then connected to the Windows PC. We mounted an SMB share as a mapped drive, set jumbo frames to 9k on both devices, and began some fairly rudimentary file transfers.

We did a 256MB ATO disk benchmark transfer and we saw the full saturation of 10GbE quickly and easily.

We then performed an AJA disk benchmark test of a 1GB 1080p config, and performance was middling between 600MB and 800MB up and down.

We then performed three separate Windows transfer tests. The first was a single 10GB 4K media file which transferred over at a seemingly capped 600MB per second. It was unclear whether this was caused by the host machine, the Celeron-powered NAS, or the device itself. But given that we’d already observed greater performance in other synthetic tests, this was quite unusual.

Then we transferred 1,000 PNG files that amounted to just 1GB of data and performance was pretty mediocre, rarely going above 50MB per second. This huge IO factor of so many transfers per second being managed was still fairly mediocre, and I’ve seen performance numbers of 300 to 500MB per second using comparable Thunderbolt 10G adapters by comparison.

Finally, I transferred over 10GB of a little over 33 high-end multimedia files and we saw performance numbers of around 500 to 600MB per second maximum. Once again we saw that unusual cap for Windows transfer of around 600MB per second with that higher-end multimedia, which did indicate oversaturation was present here, or at the very least poor PCIe routing internally.

UPDATE – During my testing and rushing, I didn’t notice the BLOODY OBVIOUS fact that the m.2 that supported the 10GbE connector is attached to SATA M.2 connector! Therefore there is clearly going to be a limitation down to 6Gb/s. This still doesn;t quite explain how the ATTO test hit full saturation at 256MB (an SMB mapped drive without caching), but this does make the results alot clearer Thank you to YouTube user @sl1ckk1ll3r and his comment here.

We will be testing several different NAS systems in the coming weeks and creating a separate article bench testing a lot more performance numbers for different NAS systems, as well as highlighting how many systems actually support this adapter to increase network connectivity on modest NAS systems soon. At the time of writing, I’m not going to say the performance is bad, but I am going to say that this does seem lower in performance compared with Thunderbolt to 10G adapters released a couple of years ago.

IOCREST USB4-to-10GbE Adapter Review Conclusion

As an alternative to a PCIe upgrade on your system, I think it’s unquestionable that this is a much more convenient option for most users. Equally, this is considerably more affordable than dedicated Thunderbolt alternatives in the market that are forced to have increased price points due to Intel certification and licensing, as well as being in the market a little while longer with stock sitting on shelves. However, this is definitely the first of a new wave of network adapters that are going to allow users greater degrees of flexibility to scale up the network connectivity of their systems. The fact that you cannot take advantage of backwards compatibility with older legacy USB connections is definitely going to hurt older generation servers and client hardware, but in the grand scheme of things, I think I am a little bit more excited about the idea that this kind of technology is going to allow affordable and accessible means for dual 10GbE connectivity and even 25GbE in the future. I can definitely recommend this adapter, but just keep your expectations on performance in check. Also, do not be fooled into thinking you can use this on older generation hardware. USB4 may well support Thunderbolt connectivity, but the backwards compatibility that USB4 promises is not present in this adapter.

Where to Buy?

 
PROS of the IOCREST USB4-to-10G NIC

Cheaper than a Thunderbolt NIC Alternative

Similar Pricing to 10GbE PCIe Adapters

BUS Powered and USB-C

Thunderbolt 3 & 4 Support

Low Power Use (1W to 2.5w Max)

Opens the door to 2x10G and 25GbE

 CONS of the IOCREST USB4-to-10GbE NIC

No Support for USB 3.1 and USB 3.2 Deployment

Only currently on AliExpress Currently

Performance is mixed

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      100 thoughts on “IOCREST USB4 to 10GbE Adapter Review”

      4. What’s the benefit of this system over a 5Gbps adaptor, given that, 5Gbps is 640MBps and you maxes out under this with the 10Gbps?
        It would have been good to see you do the same transfers with the 10Gbps Thunderbolt adaptor you have.
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      5. You can find the 10Gb pizza box ones used for cheap. I got mine (OWC branded) for $75. It’s the same as the Sonnet, S chip with secure firmware (preferred if using a mac). What USB4 chip is this IOCrest actually using? I’m guessing ASmedia?
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      8. I am still waiting for a m-ITX motherboard with 10Gbe built-in. I don’t want 4 slow ports. And unfortunately, CWWK doenst have a board with USB4 even if they are using gen 14th Intel CPU.
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      9. The one I received works great on my M2 Pro; Instant joy.

        I have NOT managed to get my Proxmox (reusing an old Intel macbook pro) to recognize it YET (so I’m still limited by Apple’s TB2-1GbE dongle on that old laptop); I was hoping to improve my speeds to the TrueNAS guest in there but I’ve clearly misunderstood something when trying to get this 10GbE recognized (could it be that it’s incompatible with Apple’s TB2-to-TB3 adapter? hmmmm. ????
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      11. I have a question: I have the new 8 bay Das from Ugreen. I trying since days to connect my MacBook to the Gas via Ethernet wire directly, but it didn’t work. I activate already the SMB in the Green Nas. But the Problem is, that via Lan cable I am unable to connect. But with wifi ( when the Nas is connected to the router ) the SMB is working and I can find the gas in the Finder in Macbook and can access the files. Only by Lan it’s not working. Do you know why it’s like this? Do I need a 10Gbit to usb c / thunderbolt adapter ? Because I am using right now a 1 Gbit adapter to usb c. greetings
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      14. Just note that these often don’t have offloading/rdma support, so your speed gets throttled by the max ghz speed of a single core. If I were to guess, it’s very likely if you had opened the task manager and viewed the cpu utilization, your top speed was a result of a pegged single core somewhere on wither the laptop or the nas. It;s just something to note when adding these types of devices to budget devices, like a raspberry pi, over using a pci card which may have rdma.
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      15. If you come across a device with SFP+ at a similar price point, please make another video. I have this one on order, but the copper connection means another $30 or so to connect it to my SFP+ switch.
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      16. I’ve been looking at M.2 PCIe 10gbe adapters for months. No idea why they are so expensive and while I’d love to buy a few for machines I have where I can’t use a card, the pricing is ridiculous.
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      20. All those existing 10 GbE Adapters you just showed in the video (sonnet, qnap, sabrent, etc.) are suffering from heat problems, thermal throttling and death from overheating. Even actively cooled devices like the qnap running hot after some hours and is very noisy with the active fan. I really don’t see that this smaller device with even less heat sinks or active cooling will do the job without overheating? Did you “stress test” it with a longer session but the short speed tests? Ordering it from aliexpress or other Chinese warehouses is just painful when you need to send it back or have warranty claims. So even when it is much cheaper, when you can’t claim your warranty for a product that tends to overheat, I see it as really problematic.
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      21. Trouble for PC users is that USB-C peaks at ~ 330Mbps (Using BlackMagicDesign speed test)
        My test just moments ago on a NvMe 1TB drive in a USB-c Enclosure give a Max speed 37.0MB/s Read and 41.6MB/s Write

        My Test on 10GB Network to my Synology (TP-link NIC and Synology 10G addin card) 733.9MB/s write and 1078 MB/s Read

        For windows users a 10Gig usb adapter would be a waste of money as you would never realize 10G speeds with it.
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      22. This is not a USB adapter. USB4 requires Thunderbolt 3 as a sub-feature, and this is using TB3. This is Iocrest’s long-standing M.2 10GbE adapter on top of a Thunderbolt 3 bridge board in an external enclosure. I imagine they are calling it “USB4” because that sounds trendy, but it’s just a Thunderbolt 3 adapter. The only thing notable about it is that it’s available a bit cheaper than other TB3 10GbE adapters on the market (e.g. $100 vs. $123).

        The bridge board literally has an Intel Thunderbolt logo on it, which should have been a clue. Look at your own photo. If you rotate the photo 180 degrees and zoom in on the BGA chip, you can tell it’s an Intel JHL6240 Thunderbolt 3 controller from 2019. You could have googled this in seconds.

        In short, this is just another AQC113 over TB3, nothing to see here, move along.

        This device is not using a SATA bridge, there is no such thing as a PCIe device behind a SATA bridge. The only thing you can connect to SATA, is a SATA device (obviously). If this adapter performs at less than 10GbE wire speed that’s because of the Thunderbolt encapsulation overhead, which shouldn’t be high enough to bring it down to 6Gbps. You’re probably using a SATA SSD on one end or the other.
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      23. I’m still just waiting for pcie gen4/5 x1 slot 10gbe nics. Smaller form-factor motherboards (ITX or mATX) are increasingly dropping the second x16 slot, and only leaving one or two x1 slots beyond the single x16 slot for the GPU. All the 10gbe cards I’ve seen for like 4 years now are stuck at gen3, which needs more than 1 pcie lane to handle bi-directional 10gbe.
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      24. Most folks need this type of adapter for their laptops, not their NAS’es!! If you need 10Gbps connectivity on your storage, you should be buying one with 10Gbps or PCIe expansion.

        But this kind of adapter is a godsend for more affordable 10Gbps connectivity on CLIENT devices with limited or no PCIe expansion, like laptops and miniPCs!
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      28. Hi there and thanks for Your video.

        I was lucky to get a OWV TB3 10G Adapter back in 2022 for „only“ 189 EUR (I think it was an „open box“ device).
        Fortunately, I could not see a significant bottleneck so far ( File transfers are just a little shy under 1200 MegaByte / s).

        I understand Your review in this was, that the device tested ist a USB4 to M.2 Adapter wirth an M.2 Network adapter.
        It would be interesting, if there is still a bottleneck, if You put the 10G network card directly into a regular M.2 slot on a mainboard.
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      29. I use the sonet since about 3 years on my mac laptop since I have 10 Gb/s fibre to my home (and office). It’s bulky and gets quite hot, but has worked flawlessly. If the electronics is the same, i wonder if the smaller package will dissipate enough heat?
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      31. I have bought this one, it is amazing 10GbE Adapter. The price has increased a little bit, but still is reasonable. I think a lot of similar solution is coming, the price will be drop more~
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      32. What! A USB to 10Gb that isn’t using the Realtek chips. Um, interesting. It makes a very big difference since I’d want to use it with Windows server, so getting a working, up-to-date driver is difficult with those Realtek-based adapters, for 2.5Gb to 10Gb.
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      35. We really should be encouraging PCIE, not USB where performance is important. It encourages oversubscription and people end up wondering why their stuff doesn’t work well. Demand more PCIE lanes.
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      36. This was so frustrating to watch, because in the whole 12 minute video you are never answering the most important question. The main question about this USB4 to 10GBE NIC is if it requires Tunneled PCI Express from the host or not. PCIe tunneling support is optional in USB4! If it does require PCIe tunneling, then where is the innovation vs the Thunderbolt 3 NICs that have been on the market for years? Most USB4 hosts are backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3 peripherals and happily take TB3 NICs. If it does not require PCIe tunneling support from the host, then this device would be something to get excited about.
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      38. Interesting to see my Reddit post mentioned at 0:33 on a YouTube video I randomly clicked. ????
        I tried out Sabrent’s TB3 10GbE NIC in July of last year and was not impressed with it’s performance. It didn’t like dealing with tons of small packets, which limits its general purpose use.
        You mentioned that the one you bought appears to be an AQC113, so it’s at least newer than the previous gen AQC107. How are the thermals on it? Any better than the old ones?
        I’d love to try one but I don’t know if I want to buy something that expensive off AE. It’s always a gamble with them and returns are a pain.
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      45. I’m really excited about the new RTL8126 5Gbps adapters you can buy for around 20€. The RTL8157 should also bring 5Gbps with a USB 3.2 connection really soon. For the price difference 5Gbps may make more sense than 10Gbps for a lot of applications.
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      47. Great review as always. I just want to ask if I can use 10gbe m.2 card directly on a computer mother board (gen 3 x4). If it works, than I can upgrade to 10Gbe on pc much cheaper and easily.
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      48. If we gave you a red button on your desk there … and what it did was quietly electrocute and dematerialize any seagull that is in physical contact with the building there … would you push it?
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      49. Yes, just got mine unit of those the other day! Super happy with it! Payed $97 incl shipping. Works great with TB3 on my iMac.
        I like that it’s really a TB3/USB4 to M.2 inside so I’m going to order a M.2 to PCIe riser to try some other PCIe cards.

        I was sort of shocked when I found it, because it was so cheap, but found some other written reviews and took the plunge. Very happy!
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      50. I find rj45 10gbe stuff runs h-o-t… (I’ve been recently transitioning to fibre) just wondering if you run a test with some better cooling… dry ice or something… ????… see if it transfers quicker ????
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      51. I’m using for last 2 years an USB-C, thunderbolt 3 …. which falls under the usb-c speed requirements to 10GBe. It’s great for laptop, but NOT for server … those are not stable enough. And my one is actually the QNAP and works as a standard usb-c without need for thunderbolt protocol (yes tested it under linux on AMD machine and it purrs like a kitten). So that’s not that new thing. Yes it was expensive, but it really helped me achieve a very stable 10gig connection for my laptop.
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      57. What worries me, that PCIe cards based on same Marvell AQC113 chipset have a relatively massive heatsink (and kinda needs one for ~5W power consumption), while this one on one hand looks like they planned chassis to be a part of heatsink, but after disassembly it looks like internal tiny radiator just don’t come into contact with it at all and I wonder if that small piece of metal is enough to keep it cool under load?
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      71. I have an internal TP-Link TX401 10Gbit PCIe card. It has a 4x PCIe connector.
        I noticed when I connected the card to a 1x slot on the motherboard the bandwidth was limited to about 600 MB/s
        In that USB version, the M.2 slot might just use one lane.
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      73. I do like the pun’s and your humor, and yes, I paused the video, likewise Robert A.!
        I do not eat calculators but I do eat chips! (joke!)
        But back to seriousness;
        If you have a spare, unused USB4 (or TB3/4) port available, it would be a great solution without losing a (more sparse) PCI-slot for a network-adapter.
        And is way more cost-effective utilising the TB3/4 port(s) beyond 2 meters via e.g. an optical cable (yes, these also exist but are ridiculous expensive).
        As USB4 is not that common-place on (pre-build) NAS machines as far as I’m aware, but plenty with TB3 and/or TB4 ports.
        Could be a win-win in such situations.
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      76. Interesting device! I currently use four OWC Thunderbolt-to-10G adapters on four mini systems which serve as VMware vSAN nodes, and they have been fine, though they run very, very hot. Unfortunately, prices for most variations of those adapters have gone up over the last couple of years.

        I always wondered by there were no USB 3.1-to-10G adapters. USB 3.1 is much more common than Thunderbolt. I guess we’re still not getting those, but as USB 4 gains in popularity — something that might take a couple of years until it’s actually common on devices — this new adapter might come in handy.

        Mention of a 25G version piques my interest as well. Unfortunately, a newly acquired RackStation 2418RP+, which needs both a 25G adapter and SSD caching, and has only a single PCIe slot which can accomodate either, but not both of those, is not a candidate for the 25G adapter, as it has no USB 4 or Thunderbolt ports. I am still stuck with a 25G PCIe card and two SATA SSDs occupying two drive bays.

        Regards to the seagulls.
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      78. *update* Massive Thanks to youtube user ‘@sl1ckk1ll3r’ who spotted how I was hitting that odd bottleneck at the 08:05 mark. In my haste, I didn’t spot that the adapter is mounted on a M.2 SATA bridge – which is a 6GB/s bottleneck. Still investigating how AJA/ATTO hit 1GB without caching over smb, but massive props to them for @sl1ckk1ll3r for catching on the board.
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      79. What confusion do you have about the two 10gbe TB devices?
        2 minute search would have told you that QNAP and Sonnet 10gbe TB adapters use last generation Marvell/Aquantia AQC107 and IOCREST use latest generation Marvell/Aquantia AQC113
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      81. Note that the AQC113c has a design bug. Marvell issued a May 2022 notice that the 113c may fail to link up with PCIe during power on, reboot, or sleep/wake in many PCs. Marvel has consequently discontinued this part.
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      82. Sorry Rob but you missed a big problem here and I’m seeing the biggest bottleneck straight off the bat on the teardown @ 5:54

        I can clearly see the M.2 connector is a SATA spec M.2 (See the 2 notches which are M and B keyed) meaning the max speed of the bus is 600MB/s as the max bandwidth is 6GB/s

        Also before anyone say it – ????????
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      83. Could you try this adapter with the Ugreen DXP 480T Plus as Ugreen mentioned that their Thunderbolt 4 connections would only be purposed for additional storage.
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      84. Would like to see a stress test on this thing I’ve seen some bad reviews on some of these types of devices where they work fine for a little bursts but if you tried it sustain 10 gigabits with data for an hour they overheat
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      88. I wonder if that board is the same as those USB4 to NVMe dongles, just now it includes an M.2 to 10GbE adapter. if it’s a B+M Key, maybe try plugging an SSD into that board?
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      95. I used to use my OWC TB3 – 10Gbe adapter until a MacOS update re-enabled the 10Gbe connection on the back of my dock and, the OWC worked quite well. But if you’re working in a room over 75 degrees, the heat generated by the device will cause disconnections. In addition, the OWC unit is HUGE. About 3x the size of the QNAP unit.
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