10Gbit card for ESXi

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Octopuss

Active Member
Jun 30, 2019
411
62
28
Czech republic
Just a small home server for the house. Partial 10Gbit upgrade (for the server because of the NAS and my PC cause I'm an impatient ass).
I'm basically choosing between Intel whatever (turned out x550 is not SFP+, so the other cards I am not fully aware of - please hlep), Chelsio T520, or Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx EN. I'd like to keep old cards out of the game for driver support worries.

I'd like to keep the heat as low as possible as a secondary soft requirement (I guess some cards are more power hungry than others).

I already asked on reddit and got some input, but more doesn't hurt.
What would you recommend and why?
Also, I'm only buying 2nd hand.
 
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acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
784
439
63
42
I'm a mix of intel x540, 550, and aquantia in my home ESX 5.5 setup.

No issues to report. Just had to get the offline-bundle driver zip files for each and install them.
 
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azev

Well-Known Member
Jan 18, 2013
768
251
63
My favorite out of the 10Gb cards I have used in the past is Emulex OCE11102 or OCE14102. They are cheap and they worked with all the os I throw at it. Performance is great too, I have no problem saturating the 2x 10gb ports on these.
 
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BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
1,050
437
83
My favorite out of the 10Gb cards I have used in the past is Emulex OCE11102 or OCE14102. They are cheap and they worked with all the os I throw at it. Performance is great too, I have no problem saturating the 2x 10gb ports on these.
I have 4-5x OCE11102. they run a bit hot for a homelab. needs decent active cooling.
 

schujj07

New Member
May 10, 2018
29
16
3
40
Just a small home server for the house. Partial 10Gbit upgrade (for the server because of the NAS and my PC cause I'm an impatient ass).
I'm basically choosing between Intel whatever (turned out x550 is not SFP+, so the other cards I am not fully aware of - please hlep), Chelsio T520, or Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx EN. I'd like to keep old cards out of the game for driver support worries.

I'd like to keep the heat as low as possible as a secondary soft requirement (I guess some cards are more power hungry than others).

I already asked on reddit and got some input, but more doesn't hurt.
What would you recommend and why?
Also, I'm only buying 2nd hand.
I have some Mellanox ConnectX-4 LX switches in the datacenter I manage and they are a great card. We use the 25GbE version instead of the 10GbE. If you are able to get some 2nd hand I would go with those/
 
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