25 GbE network card for PFsense 2.7
-
Hello everyone !
Please advise which 25 GbE network card to choose.
I have bad experience with Broadcom, good with intel. Maybe someone can recommend any card that works well with PFsense 2.7
Jakub -
@Jakub_ said in 25 GbE network card for PFsense 2.7:
Hello everyone !
Please advise which 25 GbE network card to choose.
I have bad experience with Broadcom, good with intel. Maybe someone can recommend any card that works well with PFsense 2.7
JakubI didn't think it supported anything higher than 10GbE? (I could be totally wrong on that, I swore I read it some place though)
If it does, I would recommend any Intel chipset card, but I believe there is a hardware list showing what works. -
@Amodin
According to the documentation 25 GbE is supported but my experience is negative hence the question. -
Yeah I'm sure you are correct about that but surprises me that you had a bad Broadcom experience. I would personally stay away from any Realtek based chipset NIC and stick with anything Intel.
Edit: I think the only 25GbE Intel cards are quad ports only, if that is of any concern, and I'm sure it won't be cheap, lol. Are you looking for an Ethernet card, or one to plug MiniGBic into?
-
@Amodin Preferable SFP+ / SFP 28
-
There are a few reports of high througputs here with Mellanox NICs. Also using the Intel e800 series, ice(4) driver.
-
@Jakub_ said in 25 GbE network card for PFsense 2.7:
@Amodin Preferable SFP+ / SFP 28
As was mentioned, I have heard good things about Mellanox, and if you are an avid Amazon shopper, it's on there as well - so far showing the only one with that much throughput on SFP. I haven't personally used the product, as I tend to stick with Intel-based, but I don't recall them having an affordable product for what you are referring to...
Now their i225-V chipsets I wouldn't touch with a 50ft pole....
-
Thanks guys,
So I can order two pieces (I need 4 interfaces)
Intel E810-XXVDA2 without worrying about compatibility issues ? Alternatively which Mellanox do you recommend ? -
Check this thread: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/182079/help-with-25g-speeds-on-ha-pfsense-routers-lacp-using-mellanox-connectx-5-nic
Though actually passing traffic at those speeds still surprises me.
-
@stephenw10 said in 25 GbE network card for PFsense 2.7:
Though actually passing traffic at those speeds still surprises me.
He is probably using 9000 MTU; you only need to process 350k packets per second to hit 25Gb/s at 9000 MTU.
I've ran some rudimentary test using iperf3 and only managed to reach 1.4M packet per second using 4 out of 6 cores of an i5 12500. 2 virtual functions from different connectx-4 lx physical functions was used as the NIC,
-
@stephenw10
Hi again guys !
Finally purchased four Mallonix MCX512A cards, PCIe3.0 x 8 ( R250 riser limit is two PCI 8x ).
I made some tests. R250 (with two MCX512) to R250 (with two MCX512).
1 to 1 25GbE :
and LAGG 3x 25GbE:
Enjoy :)
Jakub. -
Nice! What CPU is that using?
And is that with jumboframes?
-
@stephenw10
Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2356G CPU @ 3.20GHz / 32GB RAM.
Yes, with jumbo frames. -
@Jakub_ are you seeing these kind of performance numbers real world too or just iperf?
I know slightly older thread, but was curious if anyone had really seen much more than 10 ish gigabit through pfSense. Been working on planning a new firewall build for myself as my Netgate 6100 just can't keep up with my 8 gigabit WAN (didn't expect it to) and been debating if I should aim for something with 25 gig adapters for "future proofing" but am not sure if it's remotely worth it. Current plan is a Xeon 2146NT since it has QAT built in which I do care about.
-
@planedrop
The solution has been deployed in production, but we still have not transferred all the data streams, so I can boast of much lower results, while the 25GbE cards are working stable.
When I have an average load > 10GbE I will post.
-
@planedrop said in 25 GbE network card for PFsense 2.7:
I know slightly older thread, but was curious if anyone had really seen much more than 10 ish gigabit through pfSense.
Often users are installing router and/or firewalls internal of their networks
so no WAN/LAN but more LA/LAN traffic may be here the factor for higher
traffic. And by side this is a nearly ~400 € CPU with max. 5GHz 6C/12T
and plenty of RAM for buffering. -
@Jakub_ Sweet, this is at least a good start, appreciate the follow ups!
