Recent content by JustinClift

  1. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    Sorry, my bad. Sometimes people have bundles available of 2 x [some card] + 1 x [correct cable to join them]. Makes it easy for new people who just want a solution that works easily. Thought it was one of those.
  2. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    As an additional thought, if you're just after a straight connection between two boxes (eg server to a workstation), then something like this would be fairly simple: Mellanox MCX311A-XCAT CX311A ConnectX-3 EN 10G Ethernet 10GbE SFP+ PCI-E NIC | eBay Note, I don't know that seller at all, etc...
  3. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    With those, notice that specific Ebay item comes with the short (half height) bracket. If you're thinking to put it in a standard ATX mini tower case or similar, although the card will fit, the bracket wont. ;)
  4. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    Yeah, it's one of those things that, if you're coming from a 1GbE background and haven't really used 10/40/etc Gb/s network gear before, you're definitely best off starting small and getting the hang of things. Infiniband is a substantially different stack compared to Ethernet / TCP/IP. Not...
  5. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    This looks like the right place for OCP Mezzanine spec info: Server/Mezz - OpenCompute The current version of the spec (2.0) PDF: ownCloud
  6. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    Looking at the adapter photo's by @matthew5025: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?attachments/image-sfp-jpg.12177/ https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?attachments/image-sfp-4-jpg.12180/ ...some things stand out about the PCB design: It has places allocated for resisters, but...
  7. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    Interesting. But they'd be willing to sell the adapter (x4, or x8?) with a minimum qty of 50? If so, what price (in total) for the 50? If the adapters seem legit + price is reasonable, we might be able to split costs or something. :)
  8. J

    Mellanox ConnectX-3 on ebay look strange

    @matthew5025 Would you be ok to post some further pics of the mezzanine card itself? In the photo's above there don't seem to be any markings of Mellanox nor board identifiers (part/model #, etc). I've never used a Mellanox mezzanine board before, so no idea if that's normal for them. With...
  9. J

    3D printable full height PCIe bracket for Mellanox ConnectX-3 / HP 544QSFP 649281-B21

    Thought I did, but looking just now I can't see them anywhere. :( My best guess is they're on one of my old systems in storage overseas. So, not available at the moment. If you're any good with 3D modelling, you could adapt the Mellanox 3D models (above). It'll take some time, but will work...
  10. J

    Patching Intel X520 EEPROM to unlock all SFP+ transceivers

    From a different direction, this a util that flashes the EEPROM on SFP+ modules: sonicepk/sfppi Never got around to doing anything with it, but it might prove useful here. :) Oh, a similar effort for unlocking Intel cards, but on FreeBSD: bu7cher/ixl_unlock
  11. J

    connectX2 MNPA19 centos 4.17

    Yeah, that's one of the weird thing with Mellanox cards recently, at least on CentOS. I have several systems here with Mellanox ConnectX cards, series 1, 2, and 3. Some cards will work fine in some boxes, yet in other boxes (same kernel version) the exact same cards will just not switch into...
  12. J

    connectX2 MNPA19 centos 4.17

    As a thought, this kind of sounds like a problem I've seen over the last few months with some other Mellanox cards (ConnectX-1 and ConnectX-2 series) with CentOS. After a certain kernel version, some cards would only be seen in Infiniband (IB) mode, and the setting to have them come up as...
  13. J

    Can I connect server to CX-4 on back of D-Link DGS-3420 switch?

    Sorry, I've not used pfSense before, so can't really help there. With the transfer speeds... are you meaning 4 gigabits per second or 4 gigabytes per second? It's not clear from the context. ;)
  14. J

    3D printable full height PCIe bracket for Mellanox ConnectX-3 / HP 544QSFP 649281-B21

    Interestingly, these brackets perfectly fit the MCX353A-FCCT (ConnectX-3 Pro, single port) too. I wonder if that means Mellanox are somewhat standardising on their PCB and bracket layouts these days? As an aside, does anyone know what the thread pitch is for the screws on stock Mellanox card...
  15. J

    Do Mellanox ConnectX-2 EN 10GbE Cards work in FreeNAS?

    Yeah, FreeNAS 9.3 is very, very old now. That didn't have the Mellanox drivers in it, so it's not surprising they weren't seen. Any of the recent FreeNAS releases (eg 11.x) should see them fine. If they're not seen with that, it'll probably just mean the firmware needs updating on the cards...