Question in regards to these cards. I’m looking on eBay at them, but some say dell, some say Lenovo, one says Oracle. Does it matter which one I get for freenas? Or should I buy a specific one, it seems they are all x520 cards (looking at the DA2 ones specifically
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X520 10Gb cards
- Thread starter afmiller
- Start date
jgreco
Resident Grinch
- Joined
- May 29, 2011
- Messages
- 18,680
Some cards provided by OEM's have different PCI ID's and that can be a problem, especially where Intel's tools refuse to touch them. I don't have a list of these because I found it easier to just buy the genuine Intel Yottamark'ed cards. The X520 doesn't have firmware per-se but it does have the BIOS and I think it has some tweakable options including the option to vendor-lock optics (see the 10 Gig Networking Primer).
I've been shopping for these lately because I'm preparing to do a lab deployment and need a bunch. I think you're looking at the cards in the ~$50-70 range. Out of these, the ones I would expect to be least problematic would be the Supermicro ones.
I would expect that any of the cards should work, but it is worth noting that the BIOS might have vendor-authored crap in it and so you should make sure you can disable the option ROM from within your mainboard's BIOS. If you can do that, I don't *think* you will have any trouble.
There is effectively no difference between the DA2 and SR2 variants except that the SR2 comes with optics. Most of the eBay sellers strip these out and sell the optics separately (but still call the card an "SR2"). I favor using optics because they are incredibly flexible compared to DAC cables, and are virtually guaranteed to be compatible with any other random 10G device, switch, etc. You can put optics in the DA2's or DAC's in the SR2's. Do not obsess over DA2 and instead buy the cheaper of DA2-or-SR2.
I've been shopping for these lately because I'm preparing to do a lab deployment and need a bunch. I think you're looking at the cards in the ~$50-70 range. Out of these, the ones I would expect to be least problematic would be the Supermicro ones.
I would expect that any of the cards should work, but it is worth noting that the BIOS might have vendor-authored crap in it and so you should make sure you can disable the option ROM from within your mainboard's BIOS. If you can do that, I don't *think* you will have any trouble.
There is effectively no difference between the DA2 and SR2 variants except that the SR2 comes with optics. Most of the eBay sellers strip these out and sell the optics separately (but still call the card an "SR2"). I favor using optics because they are incredibly flexible compared to DAC cables, and are virtually guaranteed to be compatible with any other random 10G device, switch, etc. You can put optics in the DA2's or DAC's in the SR2's. Do not obsess over DA2 and instead buy the cheaper of DA2-or-SR2.
