Recommendation for 10GBE Card for Dell PowerEdge

[takeawaydave]

Hello - I am wondering whether any one could recommend a well priced 10GBE card for Dell PowerEdge R630.

I want it to have 2 Ports ideally - eventually I plan to probably buy the MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN - however initially I would use just one of the ports and connect it to one of the two SFP+ ports on my UniFi 24 port switch.

I've no experience with 10GBE so am unsure on which cables or modules might be needed in addition. So any advise appreciated.

I am planning to get a Synology NAS and install an Intel X710-DA2 card which is dual port. The idea being that the NAS provision an iSCSI based datastores across the 10GBE connections.

Thoughts / improvements / comments welcome.

 

[Dev_Mgr]

I believe Dell has an X710/i350 Network Daughter Card option for the R630 (dual SFP+ ports and dual RJ45 (1Gbase-T) ports).

Another option is a Broadcom 57810 dual port SFP+ NIC. I have picked these up for US$35 a year or so ago on Ebay.

 

[vanfawx]

One gotcha I learned the hard way with the Intel card is you have to supply Intel coded optics if you want to use fibre. The broadcom card doesn't seem to care what optics you give it. Otherwise the cards work equally as well in my experience.

 

[takeawaydave]

@vanfawx what does that ^ really mean?

I was actually looking at getting this today where the SFP+ and cables have been bundled with the X520-DA card.

In your opinion would I be covered here?

Thanks and please excuse my apparent ignorance

 

[vanfawx]

If you're using fibre optic cables, then you have to use fibre optic transceivers that have intel branding, otherwise they'll be rejected when the driver loads. This is only for fibre optic connections.

The X520-DA part according to Intel says it comes with Direct Attached cables, so you shouldn't have to worry.

Also, no worries! It can be confusing, especially with all the options.