A small 10gbe home network. Need a advice.

[shteud]

Hello everybody
I plan to upgrade my home network to 10 gbps (and I'm a bit noob on this issue)
And that's why I plan to buy several network cards with FPS + from eBay based on which I want to create a PC router.
What adapters can you recommend?
For no problem working in windows 10 / server 2012 and redhat\freebsd linux?
Now I choose from Mellanox (connect x2) and c320.
Can I use network cards from different manufacturers on the same network?
What transceiver modules should I use with this connection(with two different manufacturers)?
Should I buy cards branded HP, IBM and so on? Can I then use the drivers from the manufacturer?
And what's the difference between the Chelsio S320E-CP and Chelsio S320E-LP-CR other than the card size?
Many thanks to all who responded to help!
ps. sorry for bad English. I'm not native speaker and it's very late

 

[i386]

Yes you can use different nics in the same network.

Use transceivers that work
Jokes aside I'm using cisco transceivers with my mellanox nics, I don't know how picky the chelsio cards are.

I would get "vanilla"/stock nics as oem branded card can behave differently. (Oem branded mellanox nics can be crossflashed to stock mellanox firmware!)

How important is latency to you?
I think a pc as a router for severall 10gbe ports will require a lot of cpu power and increase the latency.

 

[shteud]

Use transceivers that work
Jokes aside I'm using cisco transceivers with my mellanox nics, I don't know how picky the chelsio cards are.

Thanks for help!
As i understand it's only one way, just try do it work on not
It's much easier use same nics i think. But i plan use mellanox with win 10 (as i see from the internet it's better driver support for windows) and chelsio for router\switch\firewall pc (same here, fewer problems with drivers for freebsd\redhat) but i'm might be wrong )

I would get "vanilla"/stock nics as oem branded card can behave differently. (Oem branded mellanox nics can be crossflashed to stock mellanox firmware!)

sorry, my English is not so good and I don't know all slang words. by "vanilla" you mean mellanox\chelsio branded nics? or sth else?

How important is latency to you?
I think a pc as a router for severall 10gbe ports will require a lot of cpu power and increase the latency.

Of course latency has matter but i don't think i get very high 10gbe now. I plan to use some 2 core celeron\pentium with 2-2,6 ghz and 4-8 gigs of ram now. later i have plan take some xeon for this purpose with lot pci-e lines.
And for control, i want use clear os/pfsense/mikrotik os. Btw how do you think what be better use for routing virtual machine on the more powerful pc(it's can be my home nas with 4 core i5 3470) or use dedicated pc with less power?

 

[shteud]

hello, again
one more question.
should I add to list solarflare and Broadcom nics?
such as
SolarFlare S6102
Solarflare SFN411
SF329-9021
BCM957810A1006G
Do they fine for a home network?
which I should prefer?

 

[i386]

by "vanilla" you mean mellanox\chelsio branded nics?

Yes. (They get more often firmware and driver updates than oem cards)

hello, again
one more question.
should I add to list solarflare and Broadcom nics?
such as
SolarFlare S6102
Solarflare SFN411
SF329-9021
BCM957810A1006G
Do they fine for a home network?
which I should prefer?

For nics I would get Intel or Mellanox cards.
The Intel nics are supported by almost any os, are of high quality and deliver good performance.
For Mellanox nics drivers are available for all big platforms (Windows, Linux, Freebsd), they are also of high quality and can outperform intel nics in some use cases with additinal tuning. Also Mellanox nics can be very cheap, like $40 for dual port 40gbe/56gbs infiniband.
I know that Broadcom asics are used in a bunch of enterprise switches, but I don't know how good their nics are.

 

[shteud]

Hello
One more question.
I find a cheap (used) switch on ebay. DELL Power Connect 6224 Switch 24 with 4 10gbt sfp+ ports.
I think maybe it's a much better idea (and cheaper ) to use this switch, at my home network (instead cheap pc with few NICs on board)
For internet routing, i can use some cheap 1 gbe router (like EdgeRouter X (ER-X)).
How do you think this combo will work?
Or dell won't work with random pc hardware? do i need some specific items to tune this switch? or it's fully manageable via web-console?

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

You can use that switch, it will work well. It's not super quiet and does use a bit of power but it will get the job done.

You can use a ER-X for routing just fine. It won't do 10GbE routing, but if you're using it for just intawebz you'll be fine.

The Dell has a Web GUI. I've not personally used the Dell GUI, but have heard it's good; slow but good. Just make sure you get good NIC's and optics for those NICs and you'll