SABRENT NICs

[jwong858]

Hi,

Does Truenas Scale support the following NICs?

SABRENT USB Type-A or Type-C to 5-Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [10/100/1000/2500/5000 Mbps] (NT-SS5G)​

SABRENT Thunderbolt 3 to 10 Gbps RJ-45 Ethernet Adapter (TH-S3EA)​

Truenas sees the 5G adapter, but only works at 1Gb/s. Truenas doesn't see the 10G adapter at all. There is a driver from Sabrent, but if I install it manually then this driver will disappear on the next Truenas update. Is it possible to include this driver into Truenas build out?

Thanks,

James

 

[danb35]

USB network interfaces have never been recommended, and it's highly unlikely they ever will be. Thunderbolt is a less-crappy interface, but why can't you install a recommended NIC (emphasis on the C for Card) in your server?

 

[jwong858]

The built-in NIC is only 2.5Gb and my PCIe x16 slots are being taken by the GPUs. I have only one PCIe x1 left and I'm struggling to find a 10G PCIe NIC with X1. If you happen to know any, please let me know?

 

[Ericloewe]

GPUs plural?

SABRENT Thunderbolt 3 to 10 Gbps RJ-45 Ethernet Adapter (TH-S3EA)

Truenas doesn't see the 10G adapter at all.

Do you have a Thunderbolt port? Because you can't magically use Thunderbolt devices on non-Thunderbolt hosts (unless the device can itself fall back to regular USB 3.x, but that's a very recent thing mostly introduced with Thunderbolt 4, which many Thunderbolt 4 docks now do but your NIC does not).

The built-in NIC is only 2.5Gb and my PCIe x16 slots are being taken by the GPUs. I have only one PCIe x1 left and I'm struggling to find a 10G PCIe NIC with X1. If you happen to know any, please let me know?

I'm struggling to find a 10G PCIe NIC with X1

That's because PCIe 3.0 provides 1 GB/s per lane, otherwise known as 8 Gb/s, which is less than 10 Gb/s. Since nobody in their right mind is likely to invest in a new 10GbE design, the market is thoroughly saturated with PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 10GbE NICs and will remain so (25GbE will likely see a similar PCIe 3.0/4.0 landscape). That means a single lane cannot support a single port of 10GbE, much less the two that are typically provided.

This is the sort of reason why it's best to pick appropriate hardware rather than yeeting a pile of random components into a corner and calling it a server. Fortunately for you, the cryptominer crowd, besides being a drain on society, has created a robust market for all sorts of weird and wonderful PCIe extender cables (illustrative example, not an endorsement). Something like this would allow you to relocate the card to a different chassis position from the physical slot, so that you don't even have to get into the metalworking of some other solutions. You won't get 10 Gb/s, but you'd get something substantially faster than 1 Gb/s.