Chelsio NIC

[Fastline]

Hey Guys,

I'm looking to get Chelsio T62100-CR/T62100-LP-CR/T62100-SO-CR.

The difference between first two i guess is one is full sized and the other is Low Profile. Not sure what is SO. By searching i figured that it means Server Offload. What is it and what would be better? The SO-CR or the LP-CR variant?

Thanks

 

[Mlovelace]

Hey Guys,

I'm looking to get Chelsio T62100-CR/T62100-LP-CR/T62100-SO-CR.

The difference between first two i guess is one is full sized and the other is Low Profile. Not sure what is SO. By searching i figured that it means Server Offload. What is it and what would be better? The SO-CR or the LP-CR variant?

Thanks

In previous Chelsio ASICs, the 'SO' versions of the cards removed some advanced offload capabilities such as iSCSI offload and TOE. I haven't looked into the T6 ASICs, but it is a safe bet Chelsio's nomenclature hasn't changed. TrueNAS doesn't leverage the advanced offload features so save some money and get the 'SO' version of the card.

 

[Fastline]

In previous Chelsio ASICs, the 'SO' versions of the cards removed some advanced offload capabilities such as iSCSI offload and TOE. I haven't looked into the T6 ASICs, but it is a safe bet Chelsio's nomenclature hasn't changed. TrueNAS doesn't leverage the advanced offload features so save some money and get the 'SO' version of the card.

Thank you for the suggestion. Do you mean non-SO Card?

Does that mean the SO variant offsets some of the work to the CPU? Therefore, the CPU usage becomes more. So, i should get the non-SO card?

 

[Fastline]

Anyone?

For 25Gbe, should i go with Intel XXV710 or E810-XXVDA2 or Chelsio T6225-CR NIC? Which one has better throughput, is stable, and has good support?

 

[blanchet]

Intel NIC has the best support on any operating systems.

 

[Fastline]

Intel NIC has the best support on any operating systems.

Are E810 supported now either on TrueNAS Core or Scale?

 

[blanchet]

E810 is supported on both TrueNAS Core and TrueNAS Scale

 

[Fastline]

E810 is supported on both TrueNAS Core and TrueNAS Scale

Sounds good. So, while i was going to purchase, i found that there is also OEM Gen from Intel for their 800 series NIC. What does OEM Gen means here? I searched Google but found no clue about this. Anyone aware of this?

 

[Fastline]

BTW, had another question.

So, i am having a Motherboard that supports only PCIe 3.0 slots. Am i good to go with the E810 or that would halve the speed or limit the throughput or anything like that? Or to be safe side, i should go with the Intel 700 series?

 

[Fastline]

Anyone?

 

[blanchet]

A PCIe 3.0 x8 has a 8GB/s bandwidth, so it is enough for a dual 25G NIC.

But according to Intel datasheets

• An Intel E810-XXVDA2, requires a PCIe 4.0 x8
• An Intel XXV710-DA2, requires a PCIe 3.0 x8

Even if an Intel E810 is more modern than an XXV710 and both NICs should work in a a PCIe 3.0 x8, I think that you should pick an Intel 710 anyway, because

• A pre-owned Intel XXV710 is much cheaper than an E810-XXVDA2 NIC.
• TrueNAS cannot leverage the extra features of the E810 ( iWARP and RoCEv2 RDMA)

 

[Fastline]

Even if an Intel E810 is more modern than an XXV710 and both NICs should work in a a PCIe 3.0 x8, I think that you should pick an Intel 710 anyway, because

Are you sure that the E810 will work fine despite my Motherboard is PCIe 3.0. I'm going for E810 cause my friend does not have XXV710.

TrueNAS cannot leverage the extra features of the E810 ( iWARP and RoCEv2 RDMA)

Whoa. I never knew it. Is that for sure?

 

[nabsltd]

Are you sure that the E810 will work fine despite my Motherboard is PCIe 3.0.

It will function, or else Intel couldn't put the "PCIe" logo on it. The card will negotiate down to PCIe 3.0 x8. Now, this does not mean that you are guaranteed to be able to drive both ports at 25Gbps at the same time. It should work, though.

My guess is that Intel went to PCIe 4.0 so that the card would work at full speed on an open-ended PCI 4.0 x4 slot, or on a physical x8 slot with only PCIe 4.0 x4 lanes attached.