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    10G Dual port NIC - Please recommend

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    • M Offline
      msi
      last edited by

      If you follow the thread about the Intel ixgbe issues you'll see that Renato is working on it (thanks again).

      But yes, cxgbe (Chelsio T4), cxgb (Chelsio T3) are also part of FreeBSD 8.3.
      Additionnaly sfxge (Solarflare 10GE) has been backported to pfSense 2.1 since quite some time back into the beta.
      I believe it's about in the state of what is in FreeBSD 9.1.

      I think the general consensus with production hardware is that the NIC should not be something to save money on and to get a server grade product.
      Allas, I haven't seen any enduser 10G products by now, they all are server-grade. ;-)

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      • J Offline
        jwelter99
        last edited by

        @MatSim:

        If you follow the thread about the Intel ixgbe issues you'll see that Renato is working on it (thanks again).

        But yes, cxgbe (Chelsio T4), cxgb (Chelsio T3) are also part of FreeBSD 8.3.
        Additionnaly sfxge (Solarflare 10GE) has been backported to pfSense 2.1 since quite some time back into the beta.
        I believe it's about in the state of what is in FreeBSD 9.1.

        I think the general consensus with production hardware is that the NIC should not be something to save money on and to get a server grade product.
        Allas, I haven't seen any enduser 10G products by now, they all are server-grade. ;-)

        Correct, and the Chelsio's are pricey - about 2x that of an Intel 520 dual port for DAC models - and have been rock solid where we use them.  But our preference is also the Intel 520's for Linux and Windows boxes as on those drivers are not an issue at all.

        I've not used Solarflare personally but have heard good things about them.

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        • S Offline
          Supermule Banned
          last edited by

          What if you run Pfsense in a Vm on 10 gbit hardware? Would it have a driver issue with FreeBSD?

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          • K Offline
            kathampy
            last edited by

            VMware is the safest because the few hardware components that are listed as compatible with ESXi are rock solid.

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            • S Offline
              Supermule Banned
              last edited by

              Exactly my point. I run the X520's here and they work fine. I bet the DA2's would do that as well

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              • J Offline
                jwelter99
                last edited by

                @Supermule:

                Exactly my point. I run the X520's here and they work fine. I bet the DA2's would do that as well

                Yes, DA2's are solid under VMWare out of the box.

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                • M Offline
                  msi
                  last edited by

                  (I didn't know Chelsio was so much more expensive, thanks for the heads-up)
                  Yes, it also seems Solarflare is quite OSS-friendly, since the not only support Linux, but offered drivers for the lesser known OS like not only FreeBSD but illumos too.

                  In terms of the 520's: the sole difference between -DA2 and -SR / -LR models that I know is that the later models get delivered with Intel-branded optics.

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                  • W Offline
                    wladikz
                    last edited by

                    hi,

                    i posted guide how i created pfsense cluster with Intel 10Gb NICs. take a look http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,66573.msg369650.html#msg369650

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                    • S Offline
                      Supermule Banned
                      last edited by

                      But the cards didnt have issues when virtualized in VmWare? Why not install ESXi and run it that way?

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                      • W Offline
                        wladikz
                        last edited by

                        this is exactly what i did. esxi and pfsense as VM with VNXNET3 NICs

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