10Gb SFP+ single port = cheaper than dirt

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hsben

Member
Sep 10, 2014
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Pardon my ignorance, but how are you guys using these if you aren't buying expensive switches for these cards?
 
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DavidVermillion

Member
Sep 22, 2015
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Id imagine most people are connecting two together.

Some of us are buying semi-expensive switches, 300 or so for Mikrotik, or 500 or so for the d-link/tp-link

Some others are buying cheap but high-cap ex-datacenter gear and just accepting the power and noise required.
 
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ttabbal

Active Member
Mar 10, 2016
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hsben said:
Pardon my ignorance, but how are you guys using these if you aren't buying expensive switches for these cards?
Click to expand...

Connect 2 machines together directly, no switch needed. Some people even put a few dual port cards in a box and make a switch by bridging them together. It sucks up a fair bit of CPU, and isn't as fast as a "real" switch, but it's far cheaper.

If you only need a couple 10Gb ports, there are a number of cheaper options out there. I just picked up an LB4M switch from a member here, and they are available on ebay. <150 for 48 1Gb ports, and 2 10Gb SFP+ slots. Use transceivers and fiber or one of the DAC cables mentioned here, and you have a pretty nice setup for 2 10Gb machines serving a network. My plan is to connect my primary workstation to it with fiber, once the DAC gets here so I can use it instead of the fiber I was going to run to the workstation. :)
 
Sleyk

Sleyk

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Mar 25, 2016
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Heheh...the M.2 950 pro will certainly do it too!

I have been weighing the cost of a pcie ssd vs 2 x sata ssd's in raid0. I was telling my brother only recently, that the price to capacity ratio in light of performance wasn't quite there for me yet. Sure, the m.2 is newer, but for me, 2 x 120gb samsung evo's give me enough speed to saturate my 10Gb link, which is all I care about.

Yeah....yeah, you got these little bastards now pushing 1400MB/s on the pcie 3.0 slot, but this is beyond what a 10Gb link can do anyway, so I see no need to spend the extra $$$ on one, unless the deal is good, and I mean, very good.

Compare it, you'll see. Most pcie ssd's value (on a decent brand model) vs 2 good ssd's in raid0 is not really that great. 2 x ssd's for me works out cheaper. If ya got the spare sata ports, this is all one would need to saturate a 10Gb link.

A major issue I have discovered too, with pcie ssd's/m.2 drives is the difficulty of drivers/the ability of the system to recognize the drive on post. There are solutions, no doubt, but I just don't wanna do all of that. I'm a lazy clown bastard.

Other factors for me include, if i even have a pcie 3.0 slot i wanna dedicate for a ssd. I am currently on the haswell generation for my htpc, so I do have 3.0 slots, but i don't really wanna use 'em for that. It depends on your setup though. If all you got is a spare m.2, then aim for the stars friends! Pop in that pcie ssd and enjoy the goodness!
 
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Keljian

Active Member
Sep 9, 2015
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Melbourne Australia
For me it is about bandwidth. I get 100mbit down, my file server VM can push 500-700meg a second. I don't want to have slow net access while doing file transfers
 
Sleyk

Sleyk

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Mar 25, 2016
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I don't understand my friend, tell me more? your internet is 100mbps download right? Your server can do 5-700Mbps? Should be more than enough to fit in a 10Gb link no?
 
NATEX

NATEX

Natex Representative
Mar 7, 2016
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We have some Quanta LB6M's. They are 10GB 24-port SFP+ Switch with 2 x SFP+ Transceiver modules for $298.
 
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Kliwer

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Feb 10, 2017
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Hi, can anyone tell me if 671798-001 will work with 1GB SFP modules? Right now I can't have 10GB at the other side but the price of 1GB SFP vs 10GB SFP is pretty much the same so I would prefer 10GB card :)
 
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Rain

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May 13, 2013
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Kliwer said:
Hi, can anyone tell me if 671798-001 will work with 1GB SFP modules? Right now I can't have 10GB at the other side but the price of 1GB SFP vs 10GB SFP is pretty much the same so I would prefer 10GB card :)
Click to expand...
I don't think ConnectX-2 cards will operate at only 1Gb. I tested this on my ConnectX-2 cards a while back, because I was curious as well, and couldn't get it to work (ConnectX-2 EN card, 10Gb DAC, switch with SFP 1Gb ports). None of the Mellanox datasheets have no mention of supporting 1Gb operation.
 
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fractal

Active Member
Jun 7, 2016
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Kliwer said:
Hi, can anyone tell me if 671798-001 will work with 1GB SFP modules? Right now I can't have 10GB at the other side but the price of 1GB SFP vs 10GB SFP is pretty much the same so I would prefer 10GB card :)
Click to expand...
No, but I can tell you that they will NOT. The only card that I have that WILL is the Intel X520-DA1. I tried both DAC and the dual-speed optic in the Mellanox and neither worked to a 1G device. Both worked in the Intel, as advertised.
 
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MathieuP

New Member
Jul 25, 2016
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good morning!
any of you using the 671798-001 (mellanox connectx-2) in HP DL380G6 servers? if so, how do they sound? G6's are very picky when it comes to "non-hp" cards and sometimes will simply run the fan at full speed.

thanks,
 
marcoi

marcoi

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Apr 6, 2013
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Gotha Florida
I didnt read through all 8 pages here, i may when i have time. I been holding off on getting intel 520-da2 cards for my three esxi servers until I had cash to get them. I already have two dell powerconnect 5524 switches which have 2 sfp+ ports each.

Can I get these cheaper cards instead? I need them to work with intel MB, Supermicro MB and a dell r720 MB. They need to function with ESXI 6.5 and obviously the powerconnect 5524 switches. I would either get single or dual port cards (if they make dual) and i would need to know what kind of cables to get. I havent played with 10GB so i dont know all the in and outs for cabling options.
 
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ttabbal

Active Member
Mar 10, 2016
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I didn't do a lot with it, but I tried booting ESXI with a Connect-X2 installed and it ran fine with it. I haven't tried on those exact systems, mine was a Intel based consumer motherboard. Dual port cards are available.

Looks like your switches have SFP+ ports, so you're good there. You might need to look into if they have any vendor-locking on them. Some 10GbE vendors love to make things difficult for some reason. The Mellanox cards don't care. For close together stuff, DACs are cheap and work well. For longer runs, SR fiber (OM3) works great.
 
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