[SOLVED] Looking for a respectable 2.5Gb or 10Gb with 2.5Gb mode NIC

[MNeverOff]

Greetings, Tom's Hardware forum!

I am in the middle of some benchmarking with software that runs in a server-client mode. Currently it's a 10Gb NIC at the server side, and I am tying to benchmark the performance with client machine running 1Gb, 2.5Gb and 10Gb NICs (RJ45, not SPF). The issue that I have now is the following:

I can't find a reliable, not no-name 2.5Gb card, or a card that allows to manually set 2.5Gb mode (Intel 550-T2 doesn't FYI)
Other requirements: WoL, PXE and iSCSI support (iSCSI over PXE, not explicitly, so PXE support should be fine)


I'm running out of options. I've found TEG-25GECTX that claims even EXSi support, but it seems to run Tehuti Networks chipset, as well as their 10Gb option (TEG-10GECTX)
Famously reliable Intel X550-T2 only supports 2.5Gb in the auto-mode, so I have to provide a 2.5 cable. I could do that with a transceiver from 10Gb SPF+ on the server to 2.5Gb RJ-45, but none are to be found either.
I have a no-name 2.5 I/O CREST SI-PEX24059 for $30 that has very controversial reviews and which chipset I couldn't identify.

Basically, I'm at a loss now. I need to bench 1Gb, 2.5Gb and 10Gb client scenarios, client MoBos are not likely to have 2.5Gb out of the box (they're not as fancy) so I need a PCIe solution, ideally. Maybe someone is aware of like 10Gtek NIC that allows for manual 2.5Gb mode?

Would appreciate any answers and different approaches to solve this benchmarking issue.

 

[bill001g]

Not sure why all the sudden stuff like 2.5g and 5g ports started to show up. For years the step has always been 1g and then 10g. All the future stuff is looking for 100g solutions.

There really is not a lot of demand from large enterprise customers. A 10g interface is cheap even when you are force to buy server brand names like HP.

I suspect these speeds are targeted at the consumer market but when you find 10g ports on motherboards for maybe $20 extra I can't see there is much market for 2.5g

I too noticed very few manufactures of chipsets. I guess I just wrote it off to little demand.

Your likely best option is to use the intel card since you know they are quality parts. To get the speed to negotiate I would buy a switch that you can set the port speed. Read the specs on the switches but there are many that can easily pass traffic between ports with no extra delay. Technically there will be the serialization delay caused by data going into memory buffers but this is less that 1/1000 of 1ms even at 1gbit.

A switch between devices is a much more realistic test anyway. Switches with 10g ports used to be expensive you can get them for a few hundred dollars. Be careful though read the total backplane speed. Some of the cheaper ones do not have the capacity to run all ports simultaneously,

 

[MNeverOff]

Not sure why all the sudden stuff like 2.5g and 5g ports started to show up. For years the step has always been 1g and then 10g. All the future stuff is looking for 100g solutions.

There really is not a lot of demand from large enterprise customers. A 10g interface is cheap even when you are force to buy server brand names like HP.

I suspect these speeds are targeted at the consumer market but when you find 10g ports on motherboards for maybe $20 extra I can't see there is much market for 2.5g

I too noticed very few manufactures of chipsets. I guess I just wrote it off to little demand.

Your likely best option is to use the intel card since you know they are quality parts. To get the speed to negotiate I would buy a switch that you can set the port speed. Read the specs on the switches but there are many that can easily pass traffic between ports with no extra delay. Technically there will be the serialization delay caused by data going into memory buffers but this is less that 1/1000 of 1ms even at 1gbit.

A switch between devices is a much more realistic test anyway. Switches with 10g ports used to be expensive you can get them for a few hundred dollars. Be careful though read the total backplane speed. Some of the cheaper ones do not have the capacity to run all ports simultaneously,

Hey, bill001g, thanks for a swift answer, I really do appreciate it!

The idea with switch throttling is a nifty one, we were considering it as an absolute last stand for testing fearing it will introduce more variables to the bench setup and therefor potentially invalidate it. But it seems like we'll have to roll with that option indeed.

Your overall observation on the state of the NICs seems pretty valid to me, however, the initial idea for this was that there are more and more 2.5Gb - capable MoBos that turn up in the consumer (or rather semi-prosumer) market.

I can't disclose much, but tl;dr 10Gb would be a complete overkill for the software that runs on the server. And 2.5Gb just about fits the bill. The idea was that if we could find a 2.5Gb NIC for even $50-60 a pop and slot that into the current clients (bear in mind all the WoL, PXE and other requirements too) we would be massively improving our client's experience. Or not - that's the goal of the bench.

Let's say we do end up proving that 2.5Gb switches are very beneficial. Based on the chipset availability ATM, would that be a risky bet to recommend a client configuration with a 2.5Gb NIC? I know that some mid-range MoBos come with them currently, but wouldn't want to spend time recommending buying 2.5Gb NICs if they'll be deprecated (or dated) in a matter of 2-3 years. Or if they won't have the aforementioned protocols support (which is likely)

 

[MNeverOff]

About whether 2.5Gb will become mainstream - there are now two and might be 3 manufacturers:

Aquantia with it's AQN-107 5Gbase-T and AQN-108 10Gbase-T (https://www.anandtech.com/show/11368/aquantia-launch-aqtion-5g25g1g-nics)
Realtec with it's RTL8125 (https://www.anandtech.com/show/15026/25-gbe-card-w-realtek-rtl8125-makes-a-debut )
And an upcoming Intel with it's i225 chipset(https://www.anandtech.com/show/14937/intel-quietly-mentions-25-gbe-ethernet-controllers )

I have high hopes for the latter to be dirt-cheap and also support all the protocols we need. However, one major concern would be it not supporting WoL.