USB NIC recommendations please
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I am running pfsense on a spare laptop that has one ethernet jack (intel gigabit). I am looking for recommendations for a USB nic adapter to use.
Since the onboard is gigabit I will use it for the lan connection. I really only need a fast ethernet dongle as my wan connection doesn't come near 100mbps.
I bought a cheapo adapter http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00484IEJS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 that so far seems to be working well enough. Its driver is built into the linux kernel so it was compatible out of the box. I think it has an asix board or possibly an asix clone board. Can anyone comment on the reliability of something like this one too?
This is going to be a home firewall so it isn't going to be under extreme stress. I am going to have probably at most 10 clients connected at any one time with some bittorrent and media server type stuff going on.
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ASIX chips seem to work well, I've got one USB2 Gigagit, of course it never plays real gigabit speed, but never crashed either.
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Your money is better spent on an inexpensive managed switch like the GS108T or its current incarnation. Then use VLANs to access multiple networks on the same physical port.
I would stay far, far away from USB Ethernet if at all possible.
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ASIX chips seem to work well, I've got one USB2 Gigagit, of course it never plays real gigabit speed, but never crashed either.
I have had the opposite experience. I was forced to use usb nics on a job awhile back and the asix based adapters were nothing but problems. The would work initially and then just die or start throwing errors. I changed them out for another chipset and the issues went away (realtek I think). I now refuse to use a usb adapter in any situation that requires uptime or stability.
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I've used these:
ASIX AX88179 USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000) "Diamond USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter"
ASIX AX88772 USB 2.0 Ethernet (10/100) "Belkin F4U047"They worked for me on an Intel D510MO for the lan interface. However it is just a home system and I did not wring them out or try to stress them with heavy traffic in any systematic way, so…
I am glad pfsense supports (even if it's not perfect) USB interfaces for ethernet and for wireless. Certainly opens up a lot of hardware possibilities to experiment with.
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Greetings:
Ugreen 20241 works well if it's on the LAN side with static IP. It's inexpensive ($9) and you can get it from Newegg. On the WAN side it works but drops the IP every once in a while.
HK
