In article , Steven Watkins
wrote:

When I need Gigabit between computers, I buy my own Gigabit
switch and plug one of the ports into the internet router. Really
no need to have that as standard on the router.

it is when you have internet speeds of 100mbit or faster,

Except these routers are given to people with speeds under 100.

gigabit is cheap and people eventually will upgrade, especially when
all it takes is a phone call or clicking a button online.

And waiting for newer technology and probably new cables or fibre to be laid
for hundreds of miles under the roads.

that's already there, and has been for years.

Most people don't have several computers,

oh yes they do.

most people have *numerous* devices on their network, including
multiple computers, smartphones, tablets, a printer, set top boxes,
security cameras, iot devices and more. most are on wifi, but some will
be wired.

Yes, but most of those don't transfer anything requiring gigabit.

oh yes they do.

hdtv & 4ktv over 100bt is going to have problems and copying anything
other than tiny files will take a lot of time, no matter what device it
is.

My
neighbour has two tablets, two laptops, and a desktop. The only network
activity between them is to share a printer. Otherwise they all get used for
Facebook, email, and Ebay.

what your neighbor does is not representative of the rest of the world.

pointless to have a more expensive
router just for the few that transfer large files between machines.

gigabit routers are cheap, and actually a bottleneck.

a usb 3 spinning hard drive is *faster* than gigabit, an internal ssd
or raid even more so.

Not in my experience, my USB 3 hard disks were **** until I removed them from
their caddies and put them inside the computers onto SATA.

then your system is defective or you did something wrong.

typical speeds for a usb 3 spinner (i.e., slow) are around 120-130
mbyte/sec (already faster than gigabit) with the better ssds & raid
around 300 mbyte/sec, or *3* gigabit/sec, sometimes even more.

gigabit is a bottleneck, and that's only going to get worse going
forward.

If you
do have several computers, one extra box is nothing,
especially when you screw it under the desk like I do.

it adds up quickly.

One box is nothing compared to 5 computers and monitors.

it adds up, and the various devices aren't all going to be next to the
modem anyway.