I'm looking for recommendations to upgrade my home lab for 10 Gbps. I have three HPE ProLiant servers and am planning to also get a Synology NAS. So, I will need 4 10Gbps NICs.
I was interested in the MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN (4 10Gbps SFP+ ports) or MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN (8 10Gbps SFP+ ports) from STH's reviews but can't seem to find SFP+ NICs that meet my needs.
I'm also open to considering, and have a slight preference, towards switches/NICs that support Multi-gigabit Ethernet (10/5/2.5/1 Gbps). But so far, I haven't found an RJ-45 multi-gigabit switch that's as good a deal as the MikroTik SFP+ switches.
It seems that, in general, the hardware related to Multi-gigabit seems more recent than the hardware that supports SFP+ ?
My needs are:
1. 10 Gbps NIC must work in a PCI 3.0 x4 slot. A lot of NICs that I see are x8 slots.
2. NIC should support VMWare ESXi 6.7.
3. NIC should support, or plan to support, VMWare ESXi 7.0.
4. Ideally, cost should be under $150. I like the Intel X550-TI (RJ45 NBASE-T). However, it is very expensive (and cheaper deals from eBay entail ordering from overseas, so makes me a little nervous on authenticity, not to mention having to wait a month or so for shipment). I saw some cheaper NICs from TrendNET and StartTech, but their support stops at ESXi 6.5 and don't support ESXi 6.7 and 7.0. Mellanox cards seem expensive, and ones that I found interesting were EOL.
There's seemingly plenty of 10 Gbps NICs listed in VMWare compatibility hardware, but it's hard to figure out which ones are good/inexpensive from the list.
Anyone have any suggestions on NICs and switches?
I was interested in the MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN (4 10Gbps SFP+ ports) or MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN (8 10Gbps SFP+ ports) from STH's reviews but can't seem to find SFP+ NICs that meet my needs.
I'm also open to considering, and have a slight preference, towards switches/NICs that support Multi-gigabit Ethernet (10/5/2.5/1 Gbps). But so far, I haven't found an RJ-45 multi-gigabit switch that's as good a deal as the MikroTik SFP+ switches.
It seems that, in general, the hardware related to Multi-gigabit seems more recent than the hardware that supports SFP+ ?
My needs are:
1. 10 Gbps NIC must work in a PCI 3.0 x4 slot. A lot of NICs that I see are x8 slots.
2. NIC should support VMWare ESXi 6.7.
3. NIC should support, or plan to support, VMWare ESXi 7.0.
4. Ideally, cost should be under $150. I like the Intel X550-TI (RJ45 NBASE-T). However, it is very expensive (and cheaper deals from eBay entail ordering from overseas, so makes me a little nervous on authenticity, not to mention having to wait a month or so for shipment). I saw some cheaper NICs from TrendNET and StartTech, but their support stops at ESXi 6.5 and don't support ESXi 6.7 and 7.0. Mellanox cards seem expensive, and ones that I found interesting were EOL.
There's seemingly plenty of 10 Gbps NICs listed in VMWare compatibility hardware, but it's hard to figure out which ones are good/inexpensive from the list.
Anyone have any suggestions on NICs and switches?