TrueNAS NIC recommendation

Hello,
I am looking to upgrade my NIC on my Truenas machine and was wondering what the community things of these? Which would you recommend? 1 Gbe is fine for me and I would like at least 2 ports and I have a full profile slot open.

  1. IBM INTEL PRO/1000 PT QUAD PORT PCIe GIGABIT NIC ADAPTER CARD 39Y6138 46Y3512
  2. Intel X540-T2 Dual Port RJ-45 10G Base-T PCIe Network B1X0 Profile Adapter Y2C0
  3. Intel X540-T2 Dual Port RJ-45 10G Base-T PCIe Network Adapter Profile D1P0 P8L0

I used X540-T2 in my TrueNAS server. They are good, but they generate lot more heat than the SFP+ versions. I hacked together a bigger heatsink and put a 40 mm Noctua fan on top of it.

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If you only need gigabit, then Intel i350 or maybe i226, get a 4 port version. You can often find them used for $50usd or around $80+ new.

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Thanks, good to know.

This post got lost in time, I’d recommend SFP+ if you go with 10gbe cards and then go with SFP+ in your 10gbe switches, the 10gbe copper runs REALLY hot. I’ve been putting x520 based dual cards in most of my lab lately, again around the $25 to $50 used price range. You can then add a 1.25gbps SFP module if you only need gigabit but room for expansion up to 10gbe in the future. These 1.25gbps modules are cheap, like $5 to $10 on ebay. I bought a 10 pack of brand new FS modules for like $60 and tossed a bunch into my CRS326-24s+2q+ switch to handle “client” connections at gigabit speeds.

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I would not recommend the X540-T2 for 3 reasons.

  1. The use a lot of power and get hot. You end up hacking the card by adding a bigger heatsink and fan.
  2. The card is pcie 2.1 and uses 8 lanes to function at advertised speeds. If your build has other items that need the pcie lanes like a graphics card or multiple nvme ssd’s.
  3. The chipset of this card is getting really old support in new things might become a problem.

If you really consider 10Gb dual cards as well better look at the X550-T2. As that is the cheapest mainstream dual 10Gb card i know that does a lot better in all the 3 things i mentioned.

I would only reccomend older cards if i know the person who asks has the extra pcie lanes. The X520 cards are pcie 2.0 so any dual port will use 8 lanes. Not a problem if you are on a real server platform most of the time. But many people here build and ask questions for consumer hardware. If they expect to have all their nvme drives and fast USB working that can become a problem when using older cards. They can be used but people have to be told so they are not surprised when running out of lanes and something ends up being a lot slower.

Please forgive this dumb post.

Assuming that PCI lanes are shared with the card slot, and that you only have 8 lanes of PCI 3.0, and that you put in an 8 lane PCIe 2.0 card, wouldn’t there still be bandwidth available to the other shared devices? Yes a slow down and something I had never really considered because even the little HP T740 has non-shared lanes to the card slot (as far as I know).

Also, which Intel dual port 10GB cards use only 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0, or do even the newer dual port cards still use all 8 lanes? Obviously I haven’t looked up the difference between something like the x520 and the x710. Again, something I just haven’t even considered because pretty much everything I work with has (what I assume are) separate lanes. And really I haven’t needed too much high performance above 10gbps to this point. Going to have to go looking now, might be able to use some 25gbps stuff going forward (maximum I have on my switches).