Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:51:12 -0800 (PST) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <freebsd-rwg@pdx.rh.CN85.dnsmgr.net> To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Recommendations for cheap PCI-E network adapter ? Message-ID: <201801032151.w03LpCtO098172@pdx.rh.CN85.dnsmgr.net> In-Reply-To: <18959.1515010411@segfault.tristatelogic.com>
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> > In message <CAKfTJoWLPvC28=kPWE5oJYW87p+qbjB6zKwSpzfOoTjK1wBTWw@mail.gmail.com>, > John Lyon <johnllyon@gmail.com> wrote: > > >What's your use case? If this is for a home box, developer box, or > >something that is not "enterprise production," then I wouldn't worry about > >RealTek cards bought in the last 5 years. Their 10/100 cards from 15 years > >ago were crap, which is how they earned their bad reputation. However, the > >continuing dismissiveness towards RealTek is mostly undeserved in my > >opinion. > > This is just for my home network. Not "mission critical", but I don't want > my equipment being eternally flaky, of course. And I am not enthused about > the possibility of having to frequently build and/or install a new driver > that isn't in the stock FreeBSD releases. > > >The issue currently is the state of the drivers themselves and not the > >cards. For example, the drivers themselves that FreeBSD includes have > >problems. However, you can always download the source code to the latest > >FreeBSD drivers from the RealTek website and all of the "bugs" disappear. > > Hummm... Am I being naive to ask why, if there are better drivers available, > they do not get rolled into -CURRENT? > > >That said, if you're cost sensitive, buy your NICS used. > > Oh yes! This is for a "new" system build for which I am buying everything > as used parts. Depending on which specific motherboard I decide to go with, > I may or may not have a good old fashioned PCI slot to work with on the > motherboard. > > If I do, then I'm good, because as I discovered last night, I have/had, sitting > inside a box of old parts up on my top shelf, no fewer than four (4) Realtek > cards, two (2) Intel cards, two (2) Netgear cards, one (1) HP card, and even > one ancient 3Com 3C509B card. (I'm pretty sure that all of these are 10/100 > cards. They are definitely all PCI.) > > The problem is that all these cards are verging on being obsolete now, because > many newer motherboards... and even ones that are several years old now... have > dropped the old fashioned PCI slots altogether (e.g. ASUS B85M-G). > > >Last time I checked, the going rate for > >used Intel NICS was something like $10 per port + shipping. I think used > >Broadcom NICS were similar in pricing. > > Really? Where? > > I checked on FleaBay and as far as -Intel- PCI-E cards, the best I could find > was about $12 USD. > > I don't know how to search FleaBay for Broadcom-based cards, because I don't > know any relevant model numbers (or even manufacturer names). ebay search for broadcom gigabit I see some Dell cards, dual port, $9.95 And some single ports at $4.99 These are shipped prices. Some people cuss at Broadcom, some people swear by them. I don't own any of there cards, but I have never had problems with the inbuilt broadcom nics in any of my dell servers. -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@freebsd.org
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