[freebsd-questions] Good FreeBSD Supported Gigabit Ethernet Card?

[Oliver Hansen]

Howard Jones wrote:
> Oliver Hansen wrote:
>> I'm looking to eventually upgrade my home network to all gigabit so 
>> I'm going to start by purchasing a few NICs for some old servers I 
>> just received. I know there are quite a few supported by FreeBSD6 
>> which I found ( 
>> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.0R/hardware-i386.html#ETHERNET ) 
>> but I'm wondering if there is any real benefit in buying a $40 or $50 
>> NIC like the Netgear GA311 or just get a $20 NIC like the D-Link 
>> DFE-530TX+. The use will probably be a firewall, proxy, file server, 
>> and DVR. 
>> <http://www.EagleBit.com/Netgear_GA311_Gigabit_PCI_Card_p/eb-400-00357.htm> 
>>
>>
> I have had good results with Intel Pro/1000 (em driver) NICs. The 
> desktop one isn't as expensive as you might think, and the driver is 
> one of the better FreeBSD NIC drivers.
>
> You might need to wind down your expectations a bit, especially on 
> older servers with vanilla PCI slots - my 'old' Celeron D fileserver 
> doesn't do much more than 25-30MB/sec. Still, doubling/tripling the 
> speed of your network isn't such a bad thing :-)
>
> With Intel server NICS on PCI-X, where I work we had up to around 
> 60MB/sec throughput for a freebsd-based firewall on modest hardware 
> (Dell 1425SC), and basic GigE switches - so the OS is good for a lot 
> more.
>
Thank you for the recommendation. I may go with an Intel Pro because 
they do seem to have good driver support and I've used them in the past 
in Windows. Yes, the basic PCI slots would not be as fast as the PCI-X 
but just a good increase is what I want. Transferring audio, video and 
other files much quicker than currently is the main goal. 60MB/sec 
sounds awesome -- but as you say, just tripling the speed of my current 
network is worth it to me.