Hello folks. I recently upgraded my internet and noticed that the new router/modem has a 10Gb port built in. My FreeNAS server has been running on regular gigabit since forever and I thought now would be the right time to upgrade to 10Gb.
I will be upgrading the software on my NAS to TrueNAS Core soon, and I need a pair of compatible 10Gb PCIe adapters as well as a 2/4 port 10Gb router but I’m not sure if the newer stuff is supported on my old LGA2011 board.
My NAS is using a SUPERMICRO X9SRA motherboard and my main rig has a ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero that already has a built in 2.5Gb port, which I want to upgrade to 10Gb.
I’m a complete novice when it comes to 10Gb stuff so I need recommendations for three items: The network adapters, the cables, and the router. Thanks folks!
I have the same generation Motherboard, and use an X520 based card, I am also running the router in a VM inside truenas (so no physical router for me …) with multiple VLANs passed through and can saturate the 20Gbps link from inside the router VM when routing traffic (adding firewall filtering drops that to 17Gbps…)
+1 for these switches, I got two recently and they tick all the boxes for me - full line-rate, 20Gbit link aggregation working fine on some Linux machines, silent, cheap (relatively). Working great with X550-T2 and Mellanox ConnectX 4 NICs, mix of FS and Mikrotik SFP+ modules.
+1 as well, I am using a CRS312-4C+8XG with SwOs (Mikrotik has a dual stack and the device can work as an L3 router, but perfromance is so-so at 10Gbit speeds, and the setup gets complicated very very quickly …)
Thank you kind folks and sorry for the delayed response. Been re-doing my NAS.
I’m thinking of getting this switch:
The trouble is that I don’t know how to connect that to my main router through the 10Gb port on my router since my router only has RJ45 ports and that MikroTik router only has SFP+ ports.
I figured I go with RJ45 10g base adapters to reduce cost. From these PCIe network adapters, which one would you guys choose and which ones should I avoid?
The TP-Link and the QNAP use an Aquantia chipset, the trendnet uses a Marvell …
In general, for truenas deployments, the suggested brands for 10Gbit are any Intel/Mellanox and Broadcom for some chipsets … they will be better supported/less prone to glitches
The most important question when choosing whether to go 10BaseT or fiber+transceivers or direct attached cables are:
How far are the components you need to connect
If they are not in the same rack, can you run additional (small ) fiber cables
In order of increasing costs, your option with the mikrotik router for connectivity would be:
SFP Network cards and DAC cables if you can run additional cables and the devices you need to connect to the switch are less than 3m from it (10-20 USD depending on length, and you don’t need any transceiver on each side)
an Intel X520 based card or a mellanox, intels are more expensive (100USD for the X520, 150 for the newer X540)
The mellanox (now Nvidia) are cheaper and well supported by anything other than windows 11: Mellanox MCX311A-XCAT CX311A ConnectX-3 EN 10G Ethernet 10GbE SFP+ PCIe NIC | eBay go for 60USD each with the 10Gbit transceiver included … beware that the cheaper mellanox options are Infiniband and use a qsfp28 plug instead of an SFP+ and will require special cabling, very expensive transceivers (the one I linked is standard SFP+)
If your distances are more than 3m and you can run additional cables, use fiber cables and fiber transceivers, they are cheaper (20USD each) than the 10baset parts, ans use way less power
an all 10baset solution (switch/cards) … this will require the least amount of cabling, anything cat5 or better for distances of less than 30m/100ft will work , but cards from Intel/Mellanox are expensive and use much more power than the SFP/Fiber
Depending on how many things you plan to hook up at 10Gbit something like a CRS312-4C+8XG (600USD) makes more sense than spending 60USD a pop for 10BaseT transceivers, but nothing beats the switch you linked for a 3-4 ports use case …
PS, even if you go with cat5/6 cable, this option is in my opinion better than any of the pure 10baset cards you linked both in terms of cost and driver support, unless as we said you need to run windows 11 …
