[SOLVED] Quad-port NIC with 4 Ethernet controllers

[HetMadden]

Hello, I need some help and advice. I’m looking for the best Quad-port NIC that has 4 Ethernet controllers. Each port having its own controller, so they don’t share a single controller.
-Thanks,
Het

 

[kanewolf]

Have you found any? I would be surprised.

 

[HetMadden]

Have you found any? I would be surprised.

Thanks for the reply! And, nope, I have not. I’ve been told they exist, but have found nothing yet.

 

[kanewolf]

Thanks for the reply! And, nope, I have not. I’ve been told they exist, but have found nothing yet.

Manufacturing costs are going to be much lower for a single controller chip. You are going to have to look for older hardware. You may only find a PCI rather than PCIe card.

 

[HetMadden]

Manufacturing costs are going to be much lower for a single controller chip. You are going to have to look for older hardware. You may only find a PCI rather than PCIe card.

Thanks, that’s a great point! I hadn’t thought of looking for older stuff!

 

[Alabalcho]

Something like this? Google/Bing for "Server four-port NIC"

 

[HetMadden]

Something like this? Google/Bing for "Server four-port NIC"

Hi and thanks for the reply! I guess I don’t quite understand how to tell if each port has its own ethernet controller instead of all four ports sharing a single ethernet controller.

 

[bill001g]

This gets into what do you call a controller. Used to be they used separate chips mostly because they could not build anything better. Now to save money they put it all on the same silicon. There are still parts on the chip dedicated to each port like the memory buffers etc. They do share the connection to the pci bus but the older devices had a single separate chip that did that function also. I am not knowledgeable enough to know what advantage either design has. I know they are separate enough you can assign them directly to different VM in the current models.

I know we had boxes of those old cards we took out of servers when they were being scrapped. I doubt they were ever used because most servers went to thinner and thinner cases and you could not get them to fit. They went to putting them on the motherboard and now days you get multiple 10g or faster ports built into the server. The problem with the old cards is I am going to bet you can not get drivers for them. I know even hp ones did not work in other models of hp servers but that may have been HP being jerks and putting fake limitations on equipment like they did many times to force you to buy new parts from them.

 

[HetMadden]

Hey, thanks for the reply, I appreciate it! The thought is, for security reasons, each Ethernet connection has its own controller so there isn’t only one controller arbitrating bus access for all four connections/networks. It seems that newer cards do share a common controller. And great point about finding drivers for older cards. I’m starting to think I’m not gonna have much luck in this endeavor.