10gbs^-1 Ethernet PCIe options

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#303697 1-Mar-2023 15:13

My main Synology RAID is getting a little old and will soon need replacing. I would like the replacement to have at least 10gbs^-1 networking, so I am looking at new switches and PCIe cards for some PCs ahead of this upgrade.

What are the recommended PCIe cards for SPF+/SFP28 these days?

Forum articles over recent years mention Intel, Mellanox (nVidia) and SolarFlare, however, there are numerous revisions of the cards with different features, interfaces, module compatibility and even firmware, so it's unclear which I should be looking at. None of the cards referred to seem to be new, which makes claims of 10gbs^-1 networking being 'cheap' somewhat misleading.

My priorities are Windows and FreeBSD (amd64) support, with as much processing offloaded to the card as possible.

Any pointers or recommendations would be appreciated.

Mehrts

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#3043645 1-Mar-2023 15:17

A while back I was using an couple of Mellanox ConnectX-2 PCIe cards with Windows machines, and they were plug & play with a couple of generic 10Gb SFP+ multimode fiber transceivers.

They achieved the full throughput straight out the gate without any config tinkering.

mentalinc

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#3043686 1-Mar-2023 16:16

ConnectX-3 are fairly cheap these days.

Note they are not supported on ESXI 8 anymore so expect more to flood onto the market as people upgrade and replace them

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dt

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#3043753 1-Mar-2023 19:31

Another +1 for Mellanox, can be picked up fairly cheap new and even cheaper second hand. I got two off eBay for $15 each with the intention of getting something better after I trialed them but never needed to as they just worked perfectly

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#3043760 1-Mar-2023 20:40

The Mellanox ConnectX-3 CX311A-XCAT looks like it might be a good choice for 10gbs^-1. I've found some forum posts with images and they look the same as what is being sold on AliExpress/eBay with the same part number. In the past I used Intel cards exclusively for their reliability and support for the software I'm using (after a bad experience with another brand on a motherboard years ago), but apparently there are fake Intel cards out there, and some are picky about SFP modules.

The CX3 seems to have 40gb variants for a similar price, but by the time you add on adaptors for SFP+, they're significantly more, and 40gb switches cost a fortune. For direct connections, 40gb would have definitely been an option.