thatguymoon
New Around Here
I've been going back and forth with Netgear support for over a week about this and I'm honestly at a loss. I'm hoping someone here can tell me if I'm crazy or if what they're telling me doesn't make sense, because it really doesn't add up to me.
My Setup
- Switch: Netgear GS110EMX (firmware 1.0.2.8)
- Port 1: Internet uplink (1G, connected to router — standard fiber ISP)
- Port 9: Mac Pro via OWC Thunderbolt 4 to 10G Ethernet Adapter (Aquantia AQC107, firmware 3.1.121)
- Port 10: Asustor AS6508T NAS (10G)
- Cables: Cat6A throughout
The Problem
Internet uploads are throttled to about 250-300 Mbps when my computer is on a 10G port. Downloads are fine at 830-880 Mbps. When I move the same computer to a 1G port with the exact same cable, uploads jump to 708 Mbps. That's more than double the speed on a port that's supposedly 10x slower.What I've Tested (at Netgear's request)
I ran every test their L3 support team asked for. Here are the results:Internet Speed Tests (computer on 10G port 9):
| Flow Control | Download | Upload |
|---|---|---|
| OFF | 865 Mbps | 306 Mbps |
| ON (port 9 only) | 879 Mbps | 169 Mbps |
| ON (both 9 & 10) | 820 Mbps | 137 Mbps |
Internet Speed Test — computer on 1G port (same cable, same everything):
| Download | Upload |
|---|---|
| 884 Mbps | 708 Mbps |
iPerf3 between Mac and NAS (local, 10G ↔ 10G):
| Direction | Speed |
|---|---|
| Mac → NAS | 3.73 Gbps |
| NAS → Mac | 9.40 Gbps |
What Netgear Says
After all this testing, support came back and told me:- This is "working as expected" and "within the design limitations of the switch"
- The 10G ports are "intended to be used as uplinks" — not for client devices
- A replacement would behave the same way
- My configuration is "not the intended use case"
Why I'm Confused
I don't understand how any of this is "expected behavior." Specifically:- How does a 1G port give me faster uploads than a 10G port? If the 1G uplink is the bottleneck, moving to a slower port should give me equal or worse speeds. Not more than double. Nobody has explained this.
- Why are only uploads affected? Downloads through the 10G port hit 865 Mbps — nearly saturating the 1G uplink. The traffic crosses the same 10G/1G speed boundary in both directions. Why would only one direction have "buffer overflow" problems?
- Flow Control made things WORSE. They asked me to enable it. It dropped uploads from 306 Mbps to 137 Mbps. How is that a fix?
- The product page says "No Network Bottlenecks thanks to the 2 10-Gigabit/Multi-Gigabit Uplinks." Now support says those ports are only meant to be uplinks and my setup is unsupported. The user manual literally shows 10G client devices connected to ports 9 and 10 in its network diagrams.
- This switch used to work. I used the exact same setup with fiber in Chicago for years with no issues. I only noticed the problem after switching to fiber here in LA recently. Something changed.
What I'm Asking
Has anyone else seen this? Am I wrong to think a managed switch should be able to handle 10G devices sending traffic through a 1G uplink without losing 70% of the uplink's capacity? I've seen a couple other threads about similar issues with the GS110EMX and I'm starting to think this is a known design flaw that Netgear just doesn't want to acknowledge.At this point I just want to know if I should keep fighting for a replacement or just give up and buy a different switch.
Any insight would be really appreciated. I've spent way too many hours on this already.
