I have an unused i9-9900k that I want to use as a NAS/ProxMox host but it only has a 1g onboard LAN.
I’ll likely have both of its PCIe slots free since I have enough SATA ports and the onboard graphics should be enough for my transcoding needs.
I just don’t want to get one from NewEgg, eBay or Amazon that doesn’t work with ProxMox.
Maybe 10g since the NAS might have sustained duration transfers as I am moving stuff around.
Thanks
Used intel x550 is usually best bet and can be sourced cheaply.
The x550 or a mellanox connect x3, both are around $50 or €50 depending on your region.
Edit: remembered incorrectly, the x520 is €50 the 550 is around €130. The latter is getting old, but will probably work, the x550 is better.
Avoid EOL hardware, it will bite you in the end.
I’ve had good results with ConnectX3, 4 systems or 5 if you count pass through into a VM (by proxmox). It also exists in a type with 2 SFP+ cages, which I also found to be good with pfsense. I’d caution not to go older than that though (ConnectX2) unless you want to apply your own directed cooling (basically, it’s not worth it). Only other thing I’d note, being at least on the models I have it won’t Wake On Lan (so I leave the onboard connected, but never to request an IP).
I found a Dell W1GCR Dual Ethernet 10 Gbp/s Network Card on eBay for $15 and it works fine on pop os
Has anyone out there had good/bad luck with the cheaper TP link stuff?
I have been eye balling the following for a while and it seems very budget friendly way tot get into the 10Gb/s networking space.
I do know intel make the better networking chips, and I recenelty saw that this might end up getting hot when put under load.
Has anyone used any of the listed gear (switch or NIC)?
Amazon - TP Link 5 port 10G Switch
It seems for a staring price of AUD$550 ($350 USD) you can get two NICs and a 10G switch. How bad can it be?
There isnt a reasonable choice here, you either go for solid but old enterprise grade hardware OR risk consumer grade aquantia/marvell solutions. There is no other silicon available and nothing is coming up the pipeline.
Multi-gig and 10gbe is dead in enterprise space and romero-sque in consumer space.
Intel X550 is still supported and while newer x710 series exists, they are supposed to be flaky on silicon level. from what I understand some features were broken enough to be pulled from spec sheets, but might work with latest firmware.
I got few of them thank to brand new ones getting junked from new vspere nodes due to unreliability 
TLDR: Any x550 is solid choice, especially in linux, where nbase ethernet support ios guaranteed to work.
A BCM57416 based adapter seems to be around ~60 EUR or so used?
Thank you all for the leads and warnings!
Do not buy an x710 unless it is with a support contract 
I’ve been out of the game for a long time, what’s popular today? Is it fibre? What speed/type?
I have been surprised how generally stuck on 1gbe consumer land is, there’s some 2.5gbe penetration but that’s about it.
It’s been a very long time since we went from 100mbps to 1gbps in the home, and it was a pretty affordable jump.
I’d like a 10gbe home network but it’s just not been compelling yet.
1gbe for management and fiber + 25Gbe for data plane for cheapest deployment, scale up as needed. As of last time I set foot in our ancient datacenter 5 years ago. Cost of switches determines what you can deploy.
Fiber everywhere above 1GBE, it absolutely justifies itself on power cost alone, cooling saving is cherry on top.
My experience is extremely dated, I worked for local government in europe and we had comparatively speaking shoe string budget. And really bad luck with hardware tenders. I would say we were at best 5-8 years behind normal state of the art.
Networking got surprisingly cheap over time per unit of throughput, and consolidation via breakout cables 100G QSFP28-> 4x25G SFP28 is also extremely useful.
But there are 400 GBe and 800 Gbe networking product already on the market. And I know next top nothing about nvidia networking, that seems to be the current state of the art.
Multi-gig and 10gbe is dead in enterprise space and romero-sque in consumer space.
Sky has fallen and intel is presenting new E610 family of ethernet adaptors. 10 gb + multigig and supposedly power efficient. Zero details though, servethehome will likely do some testing once they are available.
I did not expect that, lets hope it will not be another buggy mess.
EDIT: found product brief https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/content-details/836469/intel-ethernet-controller-e610-xat2-xat-iat2-product-brief.html
Controller itself is supposed to have maximum power consumption of 4,5W, wchich is extremely impressive for 2x10gbe capable card.
With the prices low, I figured I would pull the trigger on one and if it turns out to be a terrible choice then I wasted $30.
I bought two Supermicro AOC-STGN-i2S Dual SFP+ Intel 82599 10GbE which seemed to be the newer more power efficient controllers back in 2011.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/296936571300
The reason I got these is that they were close to my home and had shorter delivery times. I really do appreciate the suggestions from the folks here. I don’t want folks thinking I ignored your suggestions.
Looks very interesting, I was just about to pull the trigger on X550, but they suddenly disappeared everywhere and I’ve stumbled upon E610 today too. On thing is that it does not mention Windows support and I wanted those cards for all desktops at home, one of which is Win11 based.
Also pricing and availability is a big question
Drivers are already out even for desktop windows, widows 10 included. Link
Zero information on pricing though.
Found second source on power efficiency claims from lenovo writeup:
Low power consumption
With an absolute max power consumption of 5.2 W, the dual port E610-XT2 represents a 45 percent reduction in power compared to the Intel X710-T2L, and a 60 percent reduction in power compared to the Intel X550-T2.
ref. ThinkSystem Intel E610 10GBASE-T Ethernet Adapters Product Guide > Lenovo Press
Looks like a first offer poped up in Germany this week and the price is not encouraging:
for 2 port NIC (E610-XT2) it’s 356.61EUR
for 4 port NIC (E610-XT4) it’s 629.02EUR
… X550-T2 cost around 120EUR right now. I hope as more offers appear, the price will go down