Recommendations for NICs?

[Chuck Swiger]

On Jan 21, 2010, at 10:20 AM, John wrote:
[ ... ]
> Thanks!  That's perfect.  I have a chance to buy a few Intel Pro
> 10/100 (fxp) cards.  I guess I'll take it!

If you don't need gigabit, the fxp cards are great-- very reliable and some even support interrupt mitigation in firmware (which generally wasn't around until gigabit).

> Just curious, though - you don't mention 3Com cards one way or the other,
> yet there's a lot of them out there.  Any comment on those?

The older 3com NICs used by ed/vx (including 3c5xx & NE2000 clones) tended to be flaky and had issues with buffer memory causing corrupted packet data, and they generally couldn't do bus-mastering DMA.  The later 3com 9xx models used by xl are much better, but they aren't on the same level as fxp or dc-- I wouldn't bother with anything prior to a 3c905.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck