Fwd: Re: Recommendations for cheap PCI-E network adapter ?

[Frank Leonhardt (m)]

-------- Original Message --------
From: "Frank Leonhardt (m)" <frank2 at fjl.co.uk>
Sent: 2 January 2018 21:21:32 GMT+00:00
To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg at tristatelogic.com>
Subject: Re: Recommendations for cheap PCI-E network adapter ?



On 2 January 2018 20:38:19 GMT+00:00, "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg at tristatelogic.com> wrote:
>
>I need to buy a PCI-E ethernet card.  It won't really matter if it
>is 10/100/1000 or just 10/100 but it has to work with FreeBSD at a
>minimum.  It would be Nice if it was also supported by Linux and
>Windoze7, but that isn't really critical.
>
>I'm a serious cheapskate, so I'd like to spend as little as possible.
>I don't need anything super-deluxe.  Whatever is cheapest will be fine,
>even if the performance is only so-so.
>
>Recommendations would be appreciated.
>
>
>P.S.  The small amount of research I just now did suggests that Realtek
>based cards should be avoided, but one reviewer said that the Rosewill
>RC-411v3 works just fine on Ubuntu, so I'm not sure what to think about
>Realtek-based cards now.  The price is right (for me) on the Rosewill
>RC-411v3, but various online threads (relating to Realtek chips) give
>me pause...
>
>https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/60033/
>
>https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/55861/
>
>I really can't see blowing fifty bucks on a simple, low-end ethernet
>card,
>but everything inexpensive seems to be Realtek-based. :-(

Nothing wrong with Realtek at all. They are well supported. Some people are sniffy about them as the driver can't offload protocol stuff to the hardware. This makes a big difference if you have a server with lots of traffic on several interfaces. One card at 100Mbps, however, won't max out your CPU. You probably won't even measure a difference if you tried looking.

I actually use them for WOL because the drivers work more reliability, even thought I switch to Broadcomm or Intel for the heavy lifting once it's booted. See my blog for further.

Its a pity you're not in London. I have loads of NICs going spare. Can't get cheaper than that!

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