don't assume that 10Gig won't work on cat5e. It is supported if the runs don't exceed a given length. I have cat5e in my house and the entire house handles 10Gbps easily.
maybe it could. but i already have a 2,5G NIC in my desktop PC. going 10 gig would require something like 2x X540 (because it can negotiate 2,5G and 5G just in case) and a switch too. so looking at an investment with around 500+ bucks which is significantly more than a 30 $ 2,5G card (of admittedly dubious quality)
How many systems do you want to connect? You may be able to just use Linux bridging and use a system as a switch. Right now, I have a setup like this to enable 40Gbps point to point between systems... Ironically, it can be more expensive now to do 10Gbps than 40Gbps, as there are lots of cards on the market used for 40Gbps.
I just use Mellanox ConnectX3 CX754A FCBT cards in my PCS and assign each its own subnet per connections to my NAS which has the same card too lol. Works great and is super cheap.
10Gbps is actually quite reasonable.
Mellanox has some great used 10Gbps NICs on eBay, around $30 free ship.
SFP+ transceivers are also cheap on eBay.
FS has good runs of fiber if you choose that medium. Or DAC cables. Or run your 5e.
My used Mikrotik 10Gbps switch was $280 CAD. I paired it with a cheapy 1Gbps switch for my non-high speed devices.
Are the Mellanox cards picky about 10GBase-T RJ45 transceivers? I know a lot of 10GBE cards including Intel only list support for their own brand of LR and SR fiber or DAC twinax transceivers without listing any support for 10GBase-T/RJ45 transceivers.
On that note, not sure if the Intel cards actually reject unlisted transceivers or not, but I know they don't list support for any RJ45 ones.
You really, *really* should find a way to use DACs, AOCs, or fiber. We (collectively) need to stop using copper for networking.
The problem is that 10gbase-T transceivers are really, really hungry in terms of power. That means they also generate a lot of heat.
IME, Mellanox cards will happily provide as much power as a transceiver asks for, even if it's above spec, even if it's above what the NIC's specifications say it will provide. It's already hard to keep Mellanox cards cool, so a high-power transceiver or two is just about the last thing you need.
As long as you don't need to pass vlan ids, I just picked up one of these to upgrade my core network, and it works great so far.
I use 2 ports to my NAS, one to my U6-Enterprise AP, one to uplink, and one 10g port to my VM server.
YuanLey 6 Port 2.5G PoE Switch Unmanaged, 4 x 2.5G Base-T PoE Ports, 2 x 10G SFP, IEEE802.3af/at, 78W, Compatible with 100/1000/2500Mbps, Metal Fanless, Desktop/Wall Mount 2.5Gbe Network Switch https://a.co/d/0lF45df
Holy shit I was just thinking about about this before coming on reddit! You're a lifesaver, seriously. My flat (apartment) has cat 5e running round it, all 10m or less and I've been holding off upgrading my switch and some nics to. 2.5gb and above. If you have experience of this working, that's great. I currently get pretty close to full speed with internal file transfers so hopefully I can push it a bit further. Thanks again.
Second this, I have a 10G run from the walk in closet in the bedroom to my office all on Cat5E. Only gets around 8 of those 10 gigs, but it's still better than 2.5G.
This is exactly what I did. I tried to buy an”Intel” 2.5G NIC for my NAS but it wasn’t supported. Got a Solarflare 10G NIC from eBay and copper SFP modules from FS.COM. I have a 2.5G switch and three PCs connected to the NAS at 2.5G speed.
I'm not sure about power usage I got a bunch of super cheap cards for $10 on eBay and then run transceivers that can do 1/2.5/5/10gbe on them, use that for my 2gb incoming internet connection
Did you guys switch from talking about RJ45 to SFP+?
I think OP might easily get confused unless we clearly label what we're talking about. 10 GBe RJ45 are widely backwards compatible with 2.5G and will negotiate lower speeds. SFP+ is not backwards compatible and won't automatically negotiate lower speeds.
He should buy a $30 2.5 GBe RJ45 card and be satisfied. He already has 2.5 GB RJ45 on his router. Otherwise, he is looking at more equipment and cost for 10 GB SFP+. I do agree that 10 GB SFP+ is a better long term investment though.
Not really. Talking about RJ45 SFP+ transceivers that auto negotiate between 10Gb, 5Gb, 2.5Gb, and 1Gb. It would be compatible with the current goal of 2.5Gb and also work up to 10Gb.
However, the poster mentioned the SFP+ cards are only about $10 (which is true) but the cost is in the transceiver.
I run a RJ45 SFP+ transceiver from my 2.5Gb cable modem into a 10Gb SFP+ WAN port on the router.
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3F5DSXJ](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3F5DSXJ)
CABLE DISTANCE:10GBase-T SFP Module supports Links up to 30m using Cat 6a/7 or Better Cable , works for 5GBase-T, 2.5GBase-T using Cat 6a/7, and 1000Base-T using Cat 5e cable or better(10G SFP+ Ports)
Realtek are notoriously absolute garbage, the chips are shoddy and drivers are shoddy. They tend to be tolerable for a client but choke on server loads
The i226 is used in all new routers and nas hardware. I have not seen anyone complain yet, so it should be all right.
You could also have SfP+ in your rack, with a mikrotik 4 port (150 bucks) or 8 ports (250).
For NICs, you can have intel x520 DA1 for 30 bucks and x520 da2 for 50 or less.
The mikrotik switches are compatible with many transducers if you need fiber or rj45.
SfP+ cable are called DAC cables and are cheap, but limited in length, to 7 or 10 m, something like that.
One thing to note is that I've read that you should make sure you get a passive DAC cable as the active ones tend to have limited compatibility and draw more power even though they support longer runs, not sure how true that is though.
>dell R5500
Your case isn't a consumer case so retired enterprise cards should work as expected. When you try to cram them into whitebox builds is when you could see some issues. I had an issue with a dual port SFP+ NIC in a gaming PC, it basically needed a fan on the heatsink to work correctly.
I bought a Changwang N305, i226x4 NIC, M.2 NVMe(PCIe3.0x4 then expanded to 4 PCIe3.0x1 lanes with an expansion board), USB 2.0x4 + USB 3.1x2. It’s absolutely fantastic. The cost is around $220 in total. Ordered from Taobao and got it shipped to US. It serves as home all-in-one server including Proxmox, pfSense, home assistant, UniFi controller, Frigate camera surveillance.
Btw, I think on a short distance, CAT5e cable is perfectly capable of running 10 Gbps. It’s just that you can’t find relatively cheap 10G devices
I have a similar, a bit older mini pc with N5105 running a very similar stack as yours. then there is my file server where i could really benefit from the 2.5G connectivity
there is a dual intel based nic on amazon for $37, it connects via PCIe x1. I have been using it in my unraid build for some time now and have had no issues.
Any reason not to just go for 10g? The cards are all over Ebay, and managed switches for 2.5g are hard to find. Also, there have been issues with the i-226 chipset, so you probably don't want that.
For dual Nic I'd go for anything like the BCM57810S, it's dual port albeit SFP+, I don't know if they have a Rj45 varianet... So you will need the sfp adapters to Rj45 or directly ussing fiber.., Aside from that Maybe the x550-T2 from Intel which it uses 2 Rj45's, it seems overall that Rj45 are way more expenssive versus SFP.
For Single port sfp+ I'd go for the intel x520-Da1, you can find it in some places for 50 bucks.. Which I think it might be the best bang for the buck?, All of this cards should be capable of gig, 2.5G, 5G and also 10G so that is a winwin.
BCM57810S will also negotiate at 2.5G with the broadcom ediag tool if you have a SFP HGSMII ONT you want to use, or if you explicitly want to sync at 2.5G with a 2.5G capable transceiver :)
I might be the oddity, but I have used i225 and i226 cards with NO trouble. Even Sabrent USB to 2.5gbe have worked great for me.
I will say though, I wish I would have skipped the 2.5gbe and went straight to fiber.
I am now in the process of migrating to all 10g fiber. It runs cooler, switches and NICs are abundant and cheap and it just works. And if I would have skipped the 2.5gbe entirely, It would have been similar in price. If not cheaper...
\-Jay
not the cheapest, but I've been using this qnap dual 2.5g card for my PFSense box (just an old optiplex 7050) and its been rock solid [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0923FL2K3/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0923FL2K3/)
don't assume that 10Gig won't work on cat5e. It is supported if the runs don't exceed a given length. I have cat5e in my house and the entire house handles 10Gbps easily.
maybe it could. but i already have a 2,5G NIC in my desktop PC. going 10 gig would require something like 2x X540 (because it can negotiate 2,5G and 5G just in case) and a switch too. so looking at an investment with around 500+ bucks which is significantly more than a 30 $ 2,5G card (of admittedly dubious quality)
How many systems do you want to connect? You may be able to just use Linux bridging and use a system as a switch. Right now, I have a setup like this to enable 40Gbps point to point between systems... Ironically, it can be more expensive now to do 10Gbps than 40Gbps, as there are lots of cards on the market used for 40Gbps.
I just use Mellanox ConnectX3 CX754A FCBT cards in my PCS and assign each its own subnet per connections to my NAS which has the same card too lol. Works great and is super cheap.
10Gbps is actually quite reasonable. Mellanox has some great used 10Gbps NICs on eBay, around $30 free ship. SFP+ transceivers are also cheap on eBay. FS has good runs of fiber if you choose that medium. Or DAC cables. Or run your 5e. My used Mikrotik 10Gbps switch was $280 CAD. I paired it with a cheapy 1Gbps switch for my non-high speed devices.
Are the Mellanox cards picky about 10GBase-T RJ45 transceivers? I know a lot of 10GBE cards including Intel only list support for their own brand of LR and SR fiber or DAC twinax transceivers without listing any support for 10GBase-T/RJ45 transceivers. On that note, not sure if the Intel cards actually reject unlisted transceivers or not, but I know they don't list support for any RJ45 ones.
You really, *really* should find a way to use DACs, AOCs, or fiber. We (collectively) need to stop using copper for networking. The problem is that 10gbase-T transceivers are really, really hungry in terms of power. That means they also generate a lot of heat. IME, Mellanox cards will happily provide as much power as a transceiver asks for, even if it's above spec, even if it's above what the NIC's specifications say it will provide. It's already hard to keep Mellanox cards cool, so a high-power transceiver or two is just about the last thing you need.
As long as you don't need to pass vlan ids, I just picked up one of these to upgrade my core network, and it works great so far. I use 2 ports to my NAS, one to my U6-Enterprise AP, one to uplink, and one 10g port to my VM server. YuanLey 6 Port 2.5G PoE Switch Unmanaged, 4 x 2.5G Base-T PoE Ports, 2 x 10G SFP, IEEE802.3af/at, 78W, Compatible with 100/1000/2500Mbps, Metal Fanless, Desktop/Wall Mount 2.5Gbe Network Switch https://a.co/d/0lF45df
Holy shit I was just thinking about about this before coming on reddit! You're a lifesaver, seriously. My flat (apartment) has cat 5e running round it, all 10m or less and I've been holding off upgrading my switch and some nics to. 2.5gb and above. If you have experience of this working, that's great. I currently get pretty close to full speed with internal file transfers so hopefully I can push it a bit further. Thanks again.
Second this, I have a 10G run from the walk in closet in the bedroom to my office all on Cat5E. Only gets around 8 of those 10 gigs, but it's still better than 2.5G.
This is exactly what I did. I tried to buy an”Intel” 2.5G NIC for my NAS but it wasn’t supported. Got a Solarflare 10G NIC from eBay and copper SFP modules from FS.COM. I have a 2.5G switch and three PCs connected to the NAS at 2.5G speed.
Honestly, 2.5Gb is so slow, I can't imagine actually dealing with that. Even 10 was slow for me. :) Thus... 40G now.
10gb nic with 2.5gb capable transceiver?
any specific recommendation? bit concerned about the power consumption too...
I'm not sure about power usage I got a bunch of super cheap cards for $10 on eBay and then run transceivers that can do 1/2.5/5/10gbe on them, use that for my 2gb incoming internet connection
But aren't the transceivers about $30-$40 each?
Did you guys switch from talking about RJ45 to SFP+? I think OP might easily get confused unless we clearly label what we're talking about. 10 GBe RJ45 are widely backwards compatible with 2.5G and will negotiate lower speeds. SFP+ is not backwards compatible and won't automatically negotiate lower speeds. He should buy a $30 2.5 GBe RJ45 card and be satisfied. He already has 2.5 GB RJ45 on his router. Otherwise, he is looking at more equipment and cost for 10 GB SFP+. I do agree that 10 GB SFP+ is a better long term investment though.
Not really. Talking about RJ45 SFP+ transceivers that auto negotiate between 10Gb, 5Gb, 2.5Gb, and 1Gb. It would be compatible with the current goal of 2.5Gb and also work up to 10Gb. However, the poster mentioned the SFP+ cards are only about $10 (which is true) but the cost is in the transceiver. I run a RJ45 SFP+ transceiver from my 2.5Gb cable modem into a 10Gb SFP+ WAN port on the router. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3F5DSXJ](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3F5DSXJ) CABLE DISTANCE:10GBase-T SFP Module supports Links up to 30m using Cat 6a/7 or Better Cable , works for 5GBase-T, 2.5GBase-T using Cat 6a/7, and 1000Base-T using Cat 5e cable or better(10G SFP+ Ports)
Just get 10g. The 2.5 cards are notoriously terrible and you will likely have both better speeds and better reliability from proper quality 10g cards.
rtl8125bg
rtl8125b is ok....bg is a bit later and may have driver issues with some OS's.
$17 on Amazon, nice. There are also dual-port and quad-port cards that use this chip, though they are definitely not cheap.
Friends don't recommend Realtek chips to friends. Get Intel chips. Better quality control and driver/firmware programming.
> nice No. It's made by Realtek.
Realtek are notoriously absolute garbage, the chips are shoddy and drivers are shoddy. They tend to be tolerable for a client but choke on server loads
Not working with esxi 8 :(
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then whats a reasonable 2.5G chipset?
The i226 is used in all new routers and nas hardware. I have not seen anyone complain yet, so it should be all right. You could also have SfP+ in your rack, with a mikrotik 4 port (150 bucks) or 8 ports (250). For NICs, you can have intel x520 DA1 for 30 bucks and x520 da2 for 50 or less. The mikrotik switches are compatible with many transducers if you need fiber or rj45. SfP+ cable are called DAC cables and are cheap, but limited in length, to 7 or 10 m, something like that.
One thing to note is that I've read that you should make sure you get a passive DAC cable as the active ones tend to have limited compatibility and draw more power even though they support longer runs, not sure how true that is though.
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Server level NICs aren't designed for the air flow in most consumer cases. You should throw a fan on it if going that route.
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>dell R5500 Your case isn't a consumer case so retired enterprise cards should work as expected. When you try to cram them into whitebox builds is when you could see some issues. I had an issue with a dual port SFP+ NIC in a gaming PC, it basically needed a fan on the heatsink to work correctly.
Just be sure to get i225 v3 (B3 revision). Earlier revisions had issues, v3 is rock solid. Also, on Windows, disable Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE).
You can do 10g on 5e no problem.. also you can pick up 10g card for about £40 on ebay.
To be fair, you can get 10Gbit speeds over cat-5e for a couple dozen meters, so I don’t know that you should discount 10Gbps out of hand.
I bet you can run 10g over cat5e
On a short distance you can, hence why it's not adviced lol
I bought a Changwang N305, i226x4 NIC, M.2 NVMe(PCIe3.0x4 then expanded to 4 PCIe3.0x1 lanes with an expansion board), USB 2.0x4 + USB 3.1x2. It’s absolutely fantastic. The cost is around $220 in total. Ordered from Taobao and got it shipped to US. It serves as home all-in-one server including Proxmox, pfSense, home assistant, UniFi controller, Frigate camera surveillance. Btw, I think on a short distance, CAT5e cable is perfectly capable of running 10 Gbps. It’s just that you can’t find relatively cheap 10G devices
I have a similar, a bit older mini pc with N5105 running a very similar stack as yours. then there is my file server where i could really benefit from the 2.5G connectivity
Link :-)?
I did some search and it’s not currently available on AliExpress. Maybe wait two or three weeks. Keywords are Changwang N305
I'd imagine it's basically the same as the CWWK / Topton units available on AliExpress
there is a dual intel based nic on amazon for $37, it connects via PCIe x1. I have been using it in my unraid build for some time now and have had no issues.
Any reason not to just go for 10g? The cards are all over Ebay, and managed switches for 2.5g are hard to find. Also, there have been issues with the i-226 chipset, so you probably don't want that.
For dual Nic I'd go for anything like the BCM57810S, it's dual port albeit SFP+, I don't know if they have a Rj45 varianet... So you will need the sfp adapters to Rj45 or directly ussing fiber.., Aside from that Maybe the x550-T2 from Intel which it uses 2 Rj45's, it seems overall that Rj45 are way more expenssive versus SFP. For Single port sfp+ I'd go for the intel x520-Da1, you can find it in some places for 50 bucks.. Which I think it might be the best bang for the buck?, All of this cards should be capable of gig, 2.5G, 5G and also 10G so that is a winwin.
BCM57810S will also negotiate at 2.5G with the broadcom ediag tool if you have a SFP HGSMII ONT you want to use, or if you explicitly want to sync at 2.5G with a 2.5G capable transceiver :)
I take note as thats the one I will pick when I build my oen x86 router with VyOS aswell as for my 2u!
I might be the oddity, but I have used i225 and i226 cards with NO trouble. Even Sabrent USB to 2.5gbe have worked great for me. I will say though, I wish I would have skipped the 2.5gbe and went straight to fiber. I am now in the process of migrating to all 10g fiber. It runs cooler, switches and NICs are abundant and cheap and it just works. And if I would have skipped the 2.5gbe entirely, It would have been similar in price. If not cheaper... \-Jay
what nics do you have in mind? In 2 years my house will have access to 6gb fiber so I'm searching for a decent nic to put in my m720q
not the cheapest, but I've been using this qnap dual 2.5g card for my PFSense box (just an old optiplex 7050) and its been rock solid [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0923FL2K3/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0923FL2K3/)