Let me preface this by saying I am literally brand new to FreeNAS and just installed in on my first box a few days ago. I have some minimal experience with Linux before hand however which has helped.
I built my box on a budget to begin with, and figured I'd put in some upgrades as I go. I picked a motherboard that has a 2.5Gbase-T integrated NIC using the RTL8125B chip, which I managed to get to work on FreeBSD.. Performance which has been less than desirable, only about 1.5X that of any old 1G card. I'm not sure it's to blame, but I think it's causing my Hyper-V VMs installed on the iSCSI disks to hang/crash too..
I'm looking at biting the bullet and upgrading to a 10G card, and want to some advise from the community. While doing research, I found a number of newer cards built on the TN4010 chip, which not only is less expensive than (new) Intel cards it seems, but I read use a LOT less power, to the tune of 1-2W vs 10-11W, which is a substantial amount of heat in a 2U chassis without much cooling.
Has anyone else looked at these cards, and do they look like good hardware? I am concerned about reliability obviously, as well as heat. Here is one such card, which the band name right off the bat causes some concern: https://www.newegg.com/rosewill-rc-nic412v2/p/N82E16833166130
It seems there may be a working driver now for FreeNAS, but I haven't done as much research yet into what it would take to install, my Linux experience in that field is limited to none: http://www.tehutinetworks.net/?t=drivers&L1=8&L2=12&L3=61
Comments, thoughts or suggestions from the community?: Is this card worth trying, or does is a cheap consumer-grade card not even worth it, and should I just go Intel? It seems like the X550 based cards are the newest option from Intel that are certified for use with FreeNAS, is that the best way to go for reliability's sake, or is there a better recommendation? Not looking for used hardware on eBay.
I built my box on a budget to begin with, and figured I'd put in some upgrades as I go. I picked a motherboard that has a 2.5Gbase-T integrated NIC using the RTL8125B chip, which I managed to get to work on FreeBSD.. Performance which has been less than desirable, only about 1.5X that of any old 1G card. I'm not sure it's to blame, but I think it's causing my Hyper-V VMs installed on the iSCSI disks to hang/crash too..
I'm looking at biting the bullet and upgrading to a 10G card, and want to some advise from the community. While doing research, I found a number of newer cards built on the TN4010 chip, which not only is less expensive than (new) Intel cards it seems, but I read use a LOT less power, to the tune of 1-2W vs 10-11W, which is a substantial amount of heat in a 2U chassis without much cooling.
Has anyone else looked at these cards, and do they look like good hardware? I am concerned about reliability obviously, as well as heat. Here is one such card, which the band name right off the bat causes some concern: https://www.newegg.com/rosewill-rc-nic412v2/p/N82E16833166130
It seems there may be a working driver now for FreeNAS, but I haven't done as much research yet into what it would take to install, my Linux experience in that field is limited to none: http://www.tehutinetworks.net/?t=drivers&L1=8&L2=12&L3=61
Comments, thoughts or suggestions from the community?: Is this card worth trying, or does is a cheap consumer-grade card not even worth it, and should I just go Intel? It seems like the X550 based cards are the newest option from Intel that are certified for use with FreeNAS, is that the best way to go for reliability's sake, or is there a better recommendation? Not looking for used hardware on eBay.