Upgrading to 10gbe

[SomeOtherNoob]

Budget (including currency):  $0-$100 cad per card excluding transceivers

Country: Canada 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: proxmox virtualizing Pfsense and Pihole OR bare metal Pfsense with Pihole running on my nas

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I originally planned a network upgrade using a few Intel x540 NICs in my rigs but after doing some research on the supermicro x10slh-n6-st031, my all in one solution (router/firewall/switch), I found out that I would be hard limiting my wan and lan connections with the x540 chipset (1gbe/10gbe, no in between).

 

 

Im not looking for a full blown pc build but I am looking for some multi gigabit (1gbe/2.5gbe/5gbe/10gbe) NIC recommendations that's compatible with Pfsense, unraid and windows.  I only need 1 dual port for my host machine and 2 single port NICs for my PC and Nas.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mariushm]

There's lots of used / new old stock 10gbps cards out there, for cheap, under 70$ 

 

Look for x520 based cards for example, single port cards start from around 33$, here's an example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/131847037922 or another example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/292072484816

 

2 port cards from around 50-60$, here's an example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/144716011844

or another https://www.ebay.com/itm/142146627614  or another https://www.ebay.com/itm/165289540157  or another 

 

Another alternative would be the Solarflare cards ... the company was bought by Xilinx so they're no longer sold, and some models are quite cheap these days. But stick to 7th and 8th generation for drivers and firmware updates.  Drivers are still available here : https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/nic-software-and-drivers.html#sfn5000-8000

 

For example an ebay seller sells SFN7122F  2 port x 10g sfp+ for $20 each (plus 19$ shipping to Canada) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/304643386227

 

 

or this deal for $20 for SFN7120 plus two transceivers (plus $23 shipping) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/256021324011

You can get high profile brackets for 5$ https://www.ebay.com/itm/394055344847

 

For RJ45 (regular ethernet cables), you could spend $60-70 on x540-T2  , dual port 10g cards : 

example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/374565197595

or https://www.ebay.com/itm/143592056280

 

(note these cards won't support 2.5g and 5g but they're so cheap you could just add 10g cards in all your machines)

[SomeOtherNoob]

On 3/28/2023 at 9:59 AM, mariushm said:

There's lots of used / new old stock 10gbps cards out there, for cheap, under 70$ 

 

Look for x520 based cards for example, single port cards start from around 33$, here's an example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/131847037922 or another example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/292072484816

 

2 port cards from around 50-60$, here's an example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/144716011844

or another https://www.ebay.com/itm/142146627614  or another https://www.ebay.com/itm/165289540157  or another 

 

Another alternative would be the Solarflare cards ... the company was bought by Xilinx so they're no longer sold, and some models are quite cheap these days. But stick to 7th and 8th generation for drivers and firmware updates.  Drivers are still available here : https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/nic-software-and-drivers.html#sfn5000-8000

 

For example an ebay seller sells SFN7122F  2 port x 10g sfp+ for $20 each (plus 19$ shipping to Canada) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/304643386227

 

 

or this deal for $20 for SFN7120 plus two transceivers (plus $23 shipping) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/256021324011

You can get high profile brackets for 5$ https://www.ebay.com/itm/394055344847

 

For RJ45 (regular ethernet cables), you could spend $60-70 on x540-T2  , dual port 10g cards : 

example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/374565197595

or https://www.ebay.com/itm/143592056280

 

(note these cards won't support 2.5g and 5g but they're so cheap you could just add 10g cards in all your machines)

Thanks.

 

Edit: I was wrong and misinformed regarding how link speeds work. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by SomeOtherNoob