Date: Sun, 11 Jan 98 13:39:51 +0100 From: Martin Bokaemper <mnbokaem@pizza.franken.de> To: alex@comsys.com Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: multi-port Ethernet cards ?? Anyone have them or want to develop them? Message-ID: <m0xrMgF-0004pYC@olive.franken.de> In-Reply-To: <34B86D45.643D@comsys.com> References: <34B86D45.643D@comsys.com>
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Hi. > We're again looking at the requirements for a ISP box that > has 8 Ethernet ports. We'd like to run FreeBSD in the box, prefer > Intel or Digital 10/100 Mbit Ethernet controllers - 4 per board > would be good. Priced around $300 each. > > If there's someone interested in developing such a card we'd can > participate. Please contact me directly. > > If there's something out there already that fits the bill, > we'd buy rather than build. There are 4-port Ethernet Controllers available. We have one in use from Cogent (now: Adaptec). They have a family of 4 port PCI-cards that all use the DECchip controllers. We use the 4x BNC (10Mbps) model but you can get up to 4x 100Mbps fullduplex. The card currently runs in a linux box but I had it on FreeBSD too and it works fine. I don't know current prices. Look at <http://www.adaptec.com/products/overview/cogentquart.html> Potential Problems: - The board uses a PCI Bridge. Older BIOS versions often do not initialize these chips properly. - Two cards _should_ be no problem, but you can only be sure about that after a test (another field for BIOS or PCI-Driver bugs). - The controllers are longer than typical PCI-Boards - many Mainboards have the CPU or SIMMs in the back of the PCI-Slots so you can't plug in two long cards. ciao, Martin. --
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