Intel xl710 and X4DACBL3 QSFP+ to SFP+ breakout cable

[Tino Zidore]

Hi

Are there anyone on the forum who has experience splitting 40G to 4 x 10G from freenas to 10G switch?

And is it even possible?

I am going to use the NIC Intel xl710-qda2 and the compatible splitter cable X4DACBL3.

 

[dlavigne]

Were you able to find an answer to this?

 

[jgreco]

Were you able to find an answer to this?

Of course he wasn't, at least not here. I'm probably one of a handful of people who even have 40G ports available.

Quite frankly, you'd be much better off with the Chelsio cards because that way at least you're on a driver where you are not being the experimental guinea pig for a chipset none of us here use. They actually do have multiport 10G cards and even 40G cards that are supported.

 

[techknight1]

I would be interested to know if the Intel XL710-QDA2 will even work with FreeNAS? I have seen very little mention of it here or anywhere else for that matter when it comes to FreeNAS. I have a couple of Dell MXL I/O Modules and a Force10 S6000 that I would like to use. So, I guess I am in that handful that you speak of.

 

[Stux]

I would be interested to know if the Intel XL710-QDA2 will even work with FreeNAS? I have seen very little mention of it here or anywhere else for that matter when it comes to FreeNAS. I have a couple of Dell MXL I/O Modules and a Force10 S6000 that I would like to use. So, I guess I am in that handful that you speak of.

Suggest finding out of it works with FreeBSD10

 

[wblock]

FreeBSD 10.3 ixl(4) man page.

 

[Tino Zidore]

Hi

I haven't gotten it to work with the splitter cable, but I got this from HP support:

In such a case we would definitely not recommend a DAC/ DAC Splitter cable.
These can be only used if both end devices support it, but in this case we have two different devices/ series on both ends.

Please use Transceivers and optical Splitter Cables.

Example on the 5400 zl to use a HPE X132 10G SFP+ LC SR Transceiver -J9150A (up to 4)
The a optical DAC splitter cable:
K2Q47A - HP MPO to 4 x LC 15m Cable
K2Q46A - HP MPO to 4 x LC 5m Cable

*If customer requires a different distance then he can go also with 3rd party. - it should be called MPO to 4xLC.

And the server, which we assume has the QSFP+ slot, he should use a for example MPO SR4 transceiver.

I have not tested this because of the prices of the components. I simply don't have the money at the moment.

 

[techknight1]

It is great to know that the XL710 series is supported by FreeNAS. This is just another reason or advantage to FreeNAS in my book. I remember back in the day when FreeNAS first came out, it wasn't that great. How things have changed. It amazes me by the improvements that have been made in FreeNAS. When I first started this project of mine I was all about QuadStor, but I just had to keep going back and trying FreeNAS again and again. The only thing I wish for was that De-Duplication wasn't such a resource hog, but I understand the why's and how's that it is.

To the FreeNAS and iXSystems Teams, Keep up the awesome work. I would recommend FreeNAS/TrueNAS to anyone that agrees their data is worth keeping.