HP NC365T in normal pc?

[ArcticApe]

Hello!

I'm looking at a HP NC365T to mess around with pfsense. Ive done some googling and heard it works good with pfsense but I keep seeing it refered to as a "server adapter", does this mean it wouldnt fit in a normal, modern-ish computer case?

[LIGISTX]

11 minutes ago, ArcticApe said:

Hello!

I'm looking at a HP NC365T to mess around with pfsense. Ive done some googling and heard it works good with pfsense but I keep seeing it refered to as a "server adapter", does this mean it wouldnt fit in a normal, modern-ish computer case?

Yea, it’s just a PCI Intel based quad NIC. Assuming it comes with a full size PCI bracket and not a half height, it’ll fit just like any other pci card would.

 

Just a word of advice, for pfsense, only use one port for WAN and one for LAN. Don’t expect to use all 4 ports on your NIC, go from LAN to a switch. Pfsense isn’t meant to be used as a switch (you can, but…. Just don’t), thus just use 1 port for WAN and 1 for LAN.  

[ArcticApe]

11 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Yea, it’s just a PCI Intel based quad NIC. Assuming it comes with a full size PCI bracket and not a half height, it’ll fit just like any other pci card would.

 

Just a word of advice, for pfsense, only use one port for WAN and one for LAN. Don’t expect to use all 4 ports on your NIC, go from LAN to a switch. Pfsense isn’t meant to be used as a switch (you can, but…. Just don’t), thus just use 1 port for WAN and 1 for LAN.  

I thought more ports was required for VLANS? Maybe I've misunderstood something

[LIGISTX]

19 minutes ago, ArcticApe said:

I thought more ports was required for VLANS? Maybe I've misunderstood something

Vlans specifically make less ports required (and why using more ports will make your day much less fun). 
 

You assign vlans to a single physical network adapter, and you can’t assign a clan to multiple. So if you were to use multiple physical ports, you wouldn’t be able to put all vlans on all ports, which I suppose depending on your setup may be fine, but it would limit you and would cause multiple different physical infrastructures being used.
 

If you pipe all vlans over 1 LAN connection, any devices or managed switch or hypervisor connected will be able to assign any vlan tag to any port or any vm which is almost certainly what you want. 

[LIGISTX]

23 minutes ago, ArcticApe said:

I thought more ports was required for VLANS? Maybe I've misunderstood something

Lawrence has MANY greet videos that may be worth watching:

 

https://youtu.be/WMyz7SVlrgc

[ArcticApe]

On 10/7/2022 at 8:16 PM, LIGISTX said:

Lawrence has MANY greet videos that may be worth watching:

 

https://youtu.be/WMyz7SVlrgc

cheers