WiFi 6+ and 7 Hardware Question - Curiosity

General Discussion
1

This is not a TrueNAS question although it comes up because of a new feature request so I need to ask.

If a person uses an m.2 type WiFi adapter for a WiFi connection (there are so many of them these days). Is that card able to handle a lot of continuous traffic? Will it overheat? Is there a brand that is capable and what brands to stay away from.

I’m asking because I don’t know if these devices are capable of continuous high throughput.

I’m not buying one, I have a nice Asus router running Merlin firmware, very nice, and my NAS is currently using Ethernet. But is is just a question out of left field.

Cheers

2

It wouldn’t work. People forget that Wi-Fi advertised speeds are just theoretical, not practical.

TrueNAS (CORE or SCALE) often moves large, continuous datasets. Wi-Fi, even the best, is prone to fluctuations, interference, and sudden drops. This can cause:

  • Failed transfers
  • Broken SMB/NFS mounts
  • Sync corruption on long rsync/ZFS replication jobs
3

Intel WiFi chips and boards had a good reputation in the past. Not that I know anything recent about Intel & WiFi…

4

I suspect that antennas and their placement will matter a lot, possibly even more than the adapter chip itself. Which is why a wired :scream: access point is likely a better idea than Wi-Fi hardware in the NAS, stashed away in the basement where its noise does not matter…

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