Hello, i'm having some trouble with my realtek onboard, so i decided to buy a new NIC.

I checked the Hardware Compatibility page, and the only option that is listed there that i can buy is a Intel Pro/1000 Vt Quad Port.

I dont have many options in my country, so the other NIC that a i can get is a Intel 82576 Dual Port (that is cheaper)

So the question is, should i go for the Intel Pro/1000 Vt Quad Port because is compatible or someone here knows if the Intel 82576 Dual Port will be compatible ?

Thanks!

 

...the Intel 82576 DUAL will work fine. I had one of these running for years.

17 hours ago, Ford Prefect said:

...the Intel 82576 DUAL will work fine. I had one of these running for years.

Hi, thanks for the help, i did not specify but i'm using unraid mostly for SMB, as far as i know it should be fine for that purpose

@ExgS Not quite clear, what you are asking for.

 

Your inital question and reasoning refered to your stability problems with your realtek NIC.

The protocol used, like SMB, is not related to that but rather the Hardware & driver implementation in general.

An Intel 1G NIC is definitely more reliable and hence for SMB transfer as well.

 

As SMB transfer is single threaded (at the time beeing). Hence when using both ports in a bond in a LACP setup, a single client will not benefit from a dual port setup (however concurrent, different clients will). You can always use the second port in a failover scenario in a bond, though.

 

Should you aim for increased maximum throughput between a single client and unraid server - given also the dependency that you need a fast NVMe based cache-pool and higher single core performance CPU - you should look into a single port with higher bandwith, like a 10G (Melanox Connect-X3) NIC (obvioulsly deployed in both sides of the connection).