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Looking to build a 10Gbit network from scratch. (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm looking to upgrade my whole net to 10Gbit and i have two fairly inexpensive paths ahead of me:

X540-T2, which are fairly cheap in ebay but im not sure if they're chinese copycats or the real deal, i've heard about reliability issues, like not being recognized at all by motherboards.
Mellanox Cx3, a bit cheaper than X540-T2 but i don't know if they're legit or knock offs.

Both options are fairly old by 2023, almost 2024, both hit EoL already and i'm wondering if i should look for newer nics or just get this. Judging from what i've read i think i want to go with fiber instead DAC, since nics runs cooler (Lower temps would be really appreciated in my case), apparently they take less power to function and the price of the setup would be also lower for the Cx3 option. I'm a bit on a budget too so i don't want to go spending 100€+ per nic, i would need just 3 for now.

When it comes to switches, i think one QNAP QSW-2104-2T/S (Or a very similar one) will do the trick for now, i'll get something better once i can find multi 10Gbit port switches below 400€.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I welcome a correction, but my understanding is that the X540 are needlessly toasty - even by 10Gbe NIC standards. Maybe take aim for the X550 instead?

Also, if you go SFP+ ; use DAC where ever you can. They produce almost no heat since there's no conversion of the signal.

Mellanox connectx-3's are wonderfull. Mine may be a counterfeit, I have no idea, but it works great and runs cool. Only downside is the cards limited support for sleep. The card is low power in it self, but it will keep the cpu from going in to lower levels of rest during inactivety. So keep that in mind if you plan to use it for something that idles a lot.

What's the goal? Purge gigabit, or keep some connections? What connections and why? How many machines, and what kind och PCIe slots ( lanes and version) do you intendent to use?

Good luck!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Check out https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/sfp-cards-with-aspm-support.36817/page-2 to find out how to enable ASPM on ConnectX-3s.

powertop shows the card reaches C6 in my Z620 running Proxmox.

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