Upgrading NAS to Xeon, thoughts?

[Deslok]

why not the silcom cards, if the 82576EB supports SR-IOV they offer 6 ports in one slot for under 100 usually
Silicom Pei Series PEXG6I Server 6 Port Gigabit Adapter Copper PCIe 30Day WARNTY | eBay

 

[Solkku]

@Deslok that's one sick network adapter. Never seen one with six ports before, but never thought I would need one either. Now I want one just because it's so cool, just need to figure out a use for it first.

 

[canta]

why not the silcom cards, if the 82576EB supports SR-IOV they offer 6 ports in one slot for under 100 usually
Silicom Pei Series PEXG6I Server 6 Port Gigabit Adapter Copper PCIe 30Day WARNTY | eBay

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/6-port-gige-cards.5307/


I have one, the card has 3 intel dual nic chipset and pcie multiplexer ( you can see the one that has fan or some cards has big heatsink)

power consumption is crazy due on pcie multiplexer!!

support only pcie 1.

I bought ~$30 two years ago. this is handy when needed for test bed

 

[Deslok]

I'm in a similar boat, we moved to 10Gb for our hyper-v hosts at work so i don't need 6 port cards though i do want one at home maybe to build a new router in an itx system

 

[Deslok]

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/6-port-gige-cards.5307/


I have one, the card has 3 intel dual nic chipset and pcie multiplexer ( you can see the one that has fan or some cards has big heatsink)

power consumption is crazy due on pcie multiplexer!!

support only pcie 1.

I bought ~$30 two years ago. this is handy when needed for test bed

Pcie 1 shouldnt be an issue, 1 at a 1x link handles single gigabit fine and that has an 8x formfactor so the bandwith is there, I'm curious if it shows up to the system as 3 dual port cards or a single 6 port card with the pcie switch onboard

 

[canta]

Pcie 1 shouldnt be an issue, 1 at a 1x link handles single gigabit fine and that has an 8x formfactor so the bandwith is there, I'm curious if it shows up to the system as 3 dual port cards or a single 6 port card with the pcie switch onboard

wasted of pcie lane

pcie 2.X 1X lane can support 2 gig port easily...

power consumption is huge too and generate much heat on pci-e multiplexer chipset.

NO!!! 6 ports or nada for passthrough, this very logical since all nic chipsets are tied to pci-e multiplexer(switch)

on linux, run lspci -vvv, youwill seed that all 3 nic chipsets are on the top of pci-e multiplexer.

general OS usage, Yes... 3 dual nic chipsets shown (virtually) via pci-e multiplexer.

 

[Solkku]

The motherboard is here, so the building starts soon!

I'll post photos later.

 

[RTM]

why not the silcom cards, if the 82576EB supports SR-IOV they offer 6 ports in one slot for under 100 usually
Silicom Pei Series PEXG6I Server 6 Port Gigabit Adapter Copper PCIe 30Day WARNTY | eBay

Wow a fan on a gigabit NIC

According to the product description, that card does not use 82576EB but instead 82571EB chips, the same chip is also found on 1000 PT/NC364T as far as I remember. 82571EB does not support VMDQ or SR-IOV even if the PCIe switch supported it.

 

[Solkku]

Houston we have a lift-off! Just doing some basic memtesting first to see that I don't get any errors.. Will do a more extensive memtest at a later date.



Should I be able to see some kind of prompt for the M1015 SAS-card before the screen warns me that it can't see anything to boot from? Repeatedly pressing Ctrl + H during boot up does nothing. Is there a setting in the BIOS that would help with this?

I have it in the PCIe 8x Gen3 slot (middle one) at the moment, and the BIOS seems to recognize that there is a Gen 2 device installed there:

 

[xnoodle]

Is your M1015 already flashed to IT mode? Does your BIOS have OptionROM options?

 

[Solkku]

Is your M1015 already flashed to IT mode? Does your BIOS have OptionROM options?

Yes it does, the seller sold it as flashed to IT-mode. But I want to find out what BIOS version is on the card and it doesn't show anywhere. I've read that IT "17" should be the appropriate one for FreeNAS / NAS4Free.

There's also just a single green LED green blinking (~0.5sec cycles). There's also a green LED under the PCIe slot also, blinking at the exact same pace. Don't know if that's normal or not.

I looked through the BIOS for OptionROM, all that I found was this page:

 

[archangel.dmitry]

It is blinking to indicate that the motherboard is functioning properly.

As far as I know, you need to worry about OPROM only if you are going to boot off that device.

 

[Solkku]

The card seems to be in working order, as it presents both 320GB Seagate spinners (attached to it for testing purposes) in the Windows setup screen. 120GB SSDs are attached to the motherboard's SATA ports.

Now I just need to figure out a way to see the BIOS version installed on the card... Google, here I come!

 

[archangel.dmitry]

If you want the card to push its BIOS upon boot, you need to choose "Force BIOS" instead of "Keep current". It should give a chance to get into card's BIOS.

It should be in Advanced, first item from the top: Boot features. Then, you need to make sure that OPROM is enabled for the port as well, it is already in your case.

 

[Solkku]

"AddOn ROM Display Mode" is set to "Force BIOS" under boot settings, if that's the one you mean... It has been like this always, so didn't touch it. Other option as you say is "Keep current".

 

[archangel.dmitry]

So, when you start you computer it does not transfer control to the card's BIOS?

 

[Solkku]

I see absolutely nothing even indicating that there is the card installed... Like I said, Ctrl + H does nothing, which should take me to the card's BIOS and it's HDD settings.

 

[archangel.dmitry]

Try installing it in SLOT 4 PCEI 2.0. I have same motherboard with Areca controller and it allows me to access the card's BIOS.

 

[Solkku]

There's nothing still.. I placed it in the last PCIe 8X Gen 2 slot, just takes me direct to EFI shell...

 

[archangel.dmitry]

Have you tried adding the card to boot order just for testing purposes?