What is Best USB NIC 10Gbps that is supported by Pfsense?

Barry007

Interested to upgrade my pfsense box with 2 x usb nics that goes up to 10gbps?

Paint

@Barry007 , I wouldnt recommend any USB NIC over 1gbps, let alone 10gbps. Even if the card and bus can handle 10gbps, the driver most certainly wont. I recommend looking at Intel i340/i350 cards instead.

stephenw10

Yeah, it's hard to recommend USB NICs in pfSense for anything more than 100M to be honest!

Even then there are significant issues if they get disconnected for example.

There are none that can get close to 10G in pfSense/FreeBSD I'm aware of anyway.

Steve

Sergei_Shablovsky

@barry007

Just buy Netgate hardware OR read this thread https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/hardware-for-router.77924/ and buy used server on eBay.com to escape from the most of problems in a future...

UPDATE (after reading the full thread 20 days after :)
Because topic starter ask about USB, this automatically mean

NO STABILITY in mechanical/ electrical connection
high load in main CPU and memory/data bus subsystem
may be UNSTABLE DRIVER (because this type of usb/thunderbolt equipment are pretty new)

So, at the final - only for experiments, lab testing or home needs (like movie backup, etc) purposes. Because of this, any middle-quality equipment like Netgear, Trendnet or Mikrotik- would be welcome.

johnpoz

Do they even make 10ge usb nics? I know 2.5 and 5... But really don't recall ever seeing any 10ge ones..

There is that thunderbolt 3 thing - but its expensive and huge ;)

provels

@johnpoz
Just looked at the USB 3.0 specs and it looks like the theoretical limit is 5Gbps, so...

johnpoz

usb 3.1 or the newer 3.2 can do 10ge.. But I have not seen any on the market for that even..

I have a couple of 2.5gbps usb adapters.. And I see 2.35gbps with them talking to each other from pc to nas..

I thought about 5.. But pricing for the 5s where really more than I wanted to spend on my little project trying to bring multigig to my ds918+.. While smb3 multichannel was working and was seeing above around 220MBps, I wanted to push that.. And 280ish MBps is what I can max out at.. Which was worth the project cost ;) (about 80$)

So I did spend some time looking for different usb nics.. I didn't come across any 10g at all..

Barry007

@johnpoz here is 10ge https://www.startech.com/en-nz/networking-io/tb310g
I think startech works well due to the chipset compatible with free bsd, only cons is the price...

Barry007

@barry007 also the design is like a brick

stephenw10

Mmm, that's a hefty price tag. You could build a new box with 10G NICs included for that!

Also I have no idea how USB-C is handled in pfSense.

And it's still USB so liable to accidental disconnection etc.

Steve

Paint

The drivers of all of these usb NICs will not perform reliability for something like pfSense

johnpoz

That is not usb. that is thunderbolt.. Which I mentioned. And yeah it a freaking brick - just at a loss to who and the F would have use for something like that?

edit: did you also notice under its specs
"Due to technical limitations of the IC solution, max bandwidth is limited to about 7.5 Gbps"

stephenw10

Yeah, I've occasionally considered getting one for my laptop for those times I'm wanting to test above 1G. But cost has always put me off and, yeah, they mostly don't actually do 10G even if the laptop CPU can.
It's cheaper to get an external PCIe enclosure and put a 10G NIC in it.

But I would never do either of things for a pfSense box.

Steve

johnpoz

There are some reasonable priced 2.5 and 5gbs usb nics - if what your wanting to do is test above 1..

Which could work as long as your switch or where you were going to plug it in actually can do those speeds.. Some switches or nics either do 10 or 1. etc..

What I am waiting for is a reasonable priced multigig switch.. Where I can plug in copper and get 10/100/1/2.5/5/10 ;)

I would buy that switch in a heartbeat.. And all those ports wouldn't even have to be that.. Lets say 4 or 8 of the total ports.. But I can find no such animal that is not crazy priced for the home budget..

Barry007

@johnpoz mate look for this one is under budget price https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-CRS305-1G-4S-Gigabit-Ethernet-RouterOS/dp/B07LFKGP1L/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=CRS305-1G-4S%2BIN&qid=1609189078&sr=8-3

Imagine having the above switch in your infra and 2 x 10gbps usb nic (LAN/WAN) - and have your pc with pci express card with sfp - straight fiber connection to switch - future proof infra what do you recon?

Barry007

@stephenw10 pfsense is cool - if you have lan / wan nics it will get faster speeds to internet, anyhow this mean more money for infra to pour in LOL, worth it though.

Barry007

@paint pfsense as we know is based on freebsd - adheros chipset is the one that pfsense works well with, also ASSIX does a good job too, i'm using a usb 3 nic that has 3 usb extension on it and it works flawlessly with my 950/500 connection, also supports vlan tagging.

johnpoz

Yeah have seen that switch.. And its not all that bad - but then start adding up the price of the sfps and its only a few ports. And you have to uplink that so your switch with all your other ports.

What I mean was say 24 port switch that had some multigig ports and some sfp+ options..

That is the unicorn I am looking for ;)

Something like the netgear XS724EM would be great.. But its $1600 ;)

If my current sg300 caught fire or something. Then yeah new switch with lots of ports would support 10gig, and then could prob get something like what you linked to support multigig.. But it would be bit pricey currently to do all that. Now in a few years when its time to replace my sg300.. Lets see what the pricing looks like ;) My sg300 is not eol til may of 2023.. I will in the market then for sure ;)

Barry007

@johnpoz well price vs options - seen the netgear but very expensive :)

johnpoz

Yeah.. I could not justify getting the gear I want ;) with the budget committee (wife) hehehe

So 10gig dreams are a few years down the road...