Brocade 1020 CNA 10GbE PCIe Cards

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Starting a thread on these cards. They are extremely inexpensive on ebay (I purchased 3 for $99.99 total shipped).

Here is an ebay link to the cards: brocade 1020 | eBay

$33.33 each was achieved using best offer.

Specs
Power consumption: 8.5w
Dual port SFP+
Low profile (mine came with full height brackets)

Tested Operating Systems
Confirmed working with:
VMware ESXi 5.0 and ESXi 5.5 with drivers (see here)
Solaris 11 (see here)
Ubuntu 13.10 - not autodetected at startup (will try installing drivers)
Windows 7
A few threads on the Brocade 1020
http://forums.servethehome.com/networking/2143-anyone-notice-cheap-brocade-10gbe.html
http://forums.servethehome.com/networking/1488-brocade-cnas.html
 

abstractalgebra

Active Member
Dec 3, 2013
182
26
28
MA, USA
Very nice. It seams that it would not require significant airflow for the card and ESXi 5.5 drivers appear to be listed on the manufacture website.

The recommended cable from the 2nd thread, Brocade 10G Active 3m FCoE 58-1000027-01 Cable, is ~$75 on ebay.

Brocade datasheet seams really out of date listing only:
Supported operating systems
Windows Server 2003/2008; Windows Server 2008 R2; RHEL 4/5; SLES 9/10/11; Solaris 10 (x86 and SPARC); and VMware ESX 3.5, ESX/ESXi 4.0

Brocade 1010 and 1020 Converged Network Adapters (CNAs)
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
35
28
Tampere, Finland
Support list

OS:
Windows 7/8/2008r2/2012 TESTED
ESXi 5.5 TESTED
Solaris 11 TESTED
CentOS TESTED
Debian/Ubuntu TESTED, Might need to download firmware files from kernel.org's git.
Gentoo, Kernel driver as module + linux-firmware package.

Switch/nics:
Bottom line is I've not found a switch that these would NOT talk with
Extreme BD6808 10G linecard
Juniper EX33300
Force10 s4810p
ZTE E8912 10G linecard
IBM/Blade Rackswitch G8000
Intel 520 10G nics
Broadcom 10G nics

SFPs:
Only brocade branded sfp+ lamps work, tried several brands: Force10, Finisar, Avago port instantly went into error state with "foreign" sfp.

SFP cables:
Only brocade branded are reported to work.
 
Last edited:

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Tested to work on Windows 7, Solaris 11 and VMware ESXi 5.5.

Ubuntu and Debian no go, BFA and BNA modules are in the kernel but the firmwares are missing (bunch of .ko files). You can find it lots of bug reports. If you want to go linux route I think centos works, haven't tested yet.

With quick testing and no Solaris optimization got 5Gbps out of these cards on iperf.
Great information. Updated.
 

azev

Well-Known Member
Jan 18, 2013
768
251
63
has anyone using cisco dac cables and see if it would work with these cards ? I am curious what is the difference between active and non active cables.

Thanks
 

Jubby

New Member
Jun 5, 2011
3
0
1
I have a few of these cards and I believe they are not compatible with a passive DAC. No dramas running Esxi 4.1, windows 8. Couldn't get it to run on SE11 or Omnios. I did see a Korean link that showed it running on Omnios but no instructions. I also couldn't get it to link with the sfp port on my Dell 2724.
 

Lichtwald

New Member
Jan 9, 2014
9
9
3
I picked up a few of these as well. Can confirm they don't support passive DACs. I grabbed a few of the previously mentioned 3m Brocade active cables from Brocade 10g SFP Fcoe 3M Fcoe Active Cable 58 1000027 01 | eBay for 35$ a piece (so far the best price that I've seen).

I'll let you know if they work when they get here. So far the cables are installed and happy with Win 7 and 8. Like s0lid, I had no luck with Ubuntu so far, and no love on FreeBSD.

Once I get these working I'm probably going to move my FreeNAS setup to ESXi. I always love how experiments grow so naturally out of each other!
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
35
28
Tampere, Finland
Bought 2 more for 60USD/pop with 10gbics and both brackets. This way I can retire FC hardware from my network, good bye qle246x + silkworm 200e, welcome 5x 10G FCoE ;)
 

legen

Active Member
Mar 6, 2013
213
39
28
Sweden
I'm reading up on 10 Gbit equipment and have one, i guess really simple, question.
The ebay auction says -*NO SFPs INCLUDED*. So do i need to get SFP transceiver modules for the card before I can use it?

Or are transceivers mounted on the cables now days?

I have only used a Netgear GS724 SFP port before, and then i bought a separate transceiver module that i plugged in to the switch SFP "socket".

Please enlighten me :)
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
35
28
Tampere, Finland
You can use Brocade Twinax cables if you don't want to buy fiber and expensive SFP+ modules.
Brocade Twinax cables go up to 5 Meters.
 

legen

Active Member
Mar 6, 2013
213
39
28
Sweden
You can use Brocade Twinax cables if you don't want to buy fiber and expensive SFP+ modules.
Brocade Twinax cables go up to 5 Meters.
Ah okay. But generally speaking I would need to get SFP+ modules for other 10 Gbe nics?

EDIT:
Is the same true for infiniband cards like a Connect X 2 VPI? Do one need some QSFP transceiver module?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mellanox-Connect-X-2-VPI-MHQH19B-XTR-Network-Adapter-/131046383107?pt=US_Internal_Network_Cards&hash=item1e82f91e03
 
Last edited:

RTM

Well-Known Member
Jan 26, 2014
956
359
63
Thanks for the tip :)

This is probably obvious, but I thought I would mention it anyway:
If anyone experiences instability with these NICs, it can help to update the firmware.
The configuration I experiences trouble with is: Supermicro X10SLH-F and ESXi 5.5.
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
1,244
52
48
Brocade works only with brocade SFP+/DAC cables! Watch out! there is a reason why they are cheap!
 

DolphinsDan

Member
Sep 17, 2013
90
6
8
Anyone have links to working cables? I'd love to hear more on what people are actually getting to work with these Brocade NICs.
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
35
28
Tampere, Finland
Little updates:
Haven't found way enable jumbo frames in solaris 11 or any other solaris like operating systems.
CentOS 6 supports these cards out the box, no need to hassle with drivers!