Note
This guide was last updated on 27th June 2024
Many QNAP NAS devices only come with 1Gbe network interfaces. These devices can easily benefit from a simple network upgrade by connecting the ubiquitious 2.5Gbe USB NICs from Realtek. Unfortunately, some of the older QNAP NAS systems do not support the newer r8156 based 2.5Gbe NICs or r8157 based 5Gbe NICs as they run an older 4.x linux kernel and the r8152 source files included with the older linux kernel are based off an older codebase that predates the 8156/8157 series.
With some elbow grease however, we can build support for the 2.5 & 5 Gbe adapters and easily upgrade functionality.