Affordable 10Gbit copper nics?

[alkemyst]

If you read the last post on this page - apparently there are two types - one uses the fiber and transceivers and the other uses just the twinax cable
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...0-cna-10gbe-pcie-cards.2955/page-5#post-31247

Correct, the one you linked needed transceivers and fiber as far as I could tell.

Also there are some transceivers that have a permanent cable between them

There are a lot of methods. Personally I like using SFP's and fiber as it's easy to change lengths. if you know your needs, getting a card that can take a direct TWINAX link could be a savings.

 

[XavierMace]

really?

installing a driver and open sm on one computer is soooo hard.

I didn't say it was hard, I said it's a hack job. I ran an modded for OSX host for a while. Got tired of having to manually fix it after every update. Ask VMWare what they think of the setup.

 

[master_shake_]

I didn't say it was hard, I said it's a hack job. I ran an modded for OSX host for a while. Got tired of having to manually fix it after every update. Ask VMWare what they think of the setup.

ask vmware what they think of any non vmware approved appliance.

 

[boed]

For anyone interested - I checked on the brocade card and it is not supported for Windows 8.

 

[alkemyst]

Here is a thread that may be helpful.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18595990

 

[boed]

Thanks - after finding out that 2 nics (realtek and intel) which are supposed to be RSS capable don't work for SMB 3.0 on Windows 8 and finding out the brocards are not supported either I ended up just ordering the intel 10G Ethernet cards.

 

[Hanpan]

For anyone interested - I checked on the brocade card and it is not supported for Windows 8.

Just wondering where you are getting this information.

This post seems to indicate it does work in Win 8 https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/brocade-1020-cna-10gbe-pcie-cards.2955/#post-25699

In general given that windows 8 and server 2012 share a code base, unless something is specifically disabled, it should work. I have a couple of these cards coming. I can test them for you in Win 8 if you would like.

EDIT I see you got some intel nics. They will work well. Which ones did you get?

 

[boed]

I contacted QLogic - "I was informed by my level II team that we do not support Windows 8 at this time. "

 

[boed]

I ordered the X540-T1 but will not get them until Tuesday.

 

[boed]

The cards arrived today. I haven't had a chance to do much testing but I'm averaging around 500MB/s on a 30GB file. Strangely it goes up in speed - about halfway through the copy it jumps from 3Gb/s to 7.5Gb/s. I'll play around with direct vs. cache on my controller tomorrow along with much larger transfers.


I'd probably get higher if I was willing to put in RAID 50 but due to physical space in the case and financial reasons - RAID 5 will do just fine for my movie collection.

 

[azazel1024]

The cards arrived today. I haven't had a chance to do much testing but I'm averaging around 500MB/s on a 30GB file. Strangely it goes up in speed - about halfway through the copy it jumps from 300MB/s to 750MB/s. I'll play around with direct vs. cache on my controller tomorrow along with much larger transfers.


I'd probably get higher if I was willing to put in RAID 50 but due to physical space in the case and financial reasons - RAID 5 will do just fine for my movie collection.

Nagle's algorithm in play at a guess.

As for the cards, I've had some issues playing with a USB3 GbE NIC and onboard NICs getting SMB Multichannel to work. I have it working great with a couple of Intel Gigabit CT NICs in my server and desktop (sweet, sweet 235MB/sec transfers). I have not tried my onboard NICs mixed with the Intel CT NICs, though I supposed that is easy to check/test.

 

[boed]

So I got a chance to do a little more copying today. Tiny files are still slow to copy - 20Mb/s - no surprise. What did surprise me was when I copied a large file - 100GB - I got 9Gb/sec!!! I'll probably average around 5Gb/s as I have 2 file types I copy most often - BR - 25GB and TV shows 700MB to 1.5GB.

 

[alkemyst]

So I got a chance to do a little more copying today. Tiny files are still slow to copy - 20MB/s - no surprise. What did surprise me was when I copied a large file - 100GB - I got 9GB/sec!!! I'll probably average around 600GB/s as I have 2 file types I copy most often - BR - 25GB and TV shows 700MB to 1.5GB.

For a movie collection you should have been able to back up as you download.

Hopefully it's all legal usually when I am part of threads where a home user needs this kind of bandwidth it's all torrent and porn stuff.

While not movies, I have 1000's of CD's I own. That back up has completed long ago as nothing new gets really added that much. All my DVD's are backed up too, I only have about 100 DVDs though only about a half dozen BR.

 

[azazel1024]

So I got a chance to do a little more copying today. Tiny files are still slow to copy - 20MB/s - no surprise. What did surprise me was when I copied a large file - 100GB - I got 9GB/sec!!! I'll probably average around 600GB/s as I have 2 file types I copy most often - BR - 25GB and TV shows 700MB to 1.5GB.

Uh...I assume your numbers are actualy Mbps and Gbps and not MB/s and GB/s. The 20MB/s for tiny files sounds fine, but I don't see how you could get 9 GIGABYTES per second with a 10 GIGABIT per second connection.

MB and GB ALWAYS mean BYTEs. Big B, bytes, little b, bits.

Typical convention is also to write it as MB/s or GB/s and Mbps and Gbps for Megabytes/Gigabytes per second and Megabits/Gigabits per second. You could also write it Mb/s and Gb/s or MBps and GBps, but it does lend towards a bit more confusion writing it that way.

Granted I don't know you exact process, but I generally only need to do HUGE transfers if I am replacing a disk array (which, thankful is exceedingly rare as I am only starting to get in to a total disk replacement in my server an desktop for the first time in about 3 years). Around 1.7TB of data, so it does take awhile, even at 2Gbps. But, meh, very rare.

More commonly I am backing up from my desktop to my server (occasionally server to desktop if it was data pushed from my tablet or laptop to the server). That said, even with a weekly job running, I am generally only talking 3-10GB of data as my photography and occasional BR rip (of a new movie I've bought) just doesn't generate that much (and the heck with keeping the BR ISOs, I transcode everything as that is the only way I can take stuff with me, and that is half my watching is on my tablet on the go...and I am not sitting and waiting for stuff to transcode, that and my storage costs would go up easily 3-4x instead of keeping just the final 720/1080p mp4).

A regular 1Gbps connection would be just fine for those, but of course occasionally I do transfer stuff during butt in the seat, hands on the keyboard time, and if I am transfering a 6GB file or something, I'd really rather prefer it take 26 seconds instead of 52 seconds.

 

[boed]

You are correct I got so excited I was all over the place. I'll edit the post.

 

[boed]

FYI - for anyone wondering about the brocade cards, I got my hands on them - they are the fiber model, not the copper, the copper cable won't work. You can use the 2012 R2 drivers on them for Windows 8.1 although Qlogic isn't officially supporting that. Also they generate a TREMENDOUS amount of HEAT so unless you have VERY good airflow, you might want to either consider putting in more high volume fans or just going with the Ethernet solution.

 

[Emulex]

Brocade cards require "brocade" branded DAC cables for up to 5Meters and ACTIVE DAC cables versus cheap generic SFP+ DAC cables up to 5 meters!

I'd suggest ebay-scanning for silicom or other X520 compatible chipsets. I would score $100 for a dual SFP+ silicom intel compatible 10gbit nic with two SFP+ SR optics loaded all the time! Dell emulex dual SFP+ nic's for $70-90 with both SFP+ SR optics included! Then you can use cheapo OM4 cabling and rock out! It's all about finding the right deal at the right time.

You can remove SFP+ optics and stuff a DAC passive cable in most cards FYI and run up to 5 Meter DAC to DAC!