thinking of next level networking for your unraid setup? maybe go 2x25G and beyond

[Ford Prefect]

Folks,

 

when even DUAL 10G cards are not good enough...look at this: https://www.balticnetworks.com/mikrotik-ccr2004-pcie-network-interface-card

Note: this is not a network card in its own sense, but a fully fledged Mikrotik CCR2004 Router, running RouterOS. 

This unique MikroTik product combines a simple 2x 25 Gigabit PCIe Ethernet adapter with the impressive capabilities of a fully-fledged router. 
By default, the PCIe interface will show up as four virtual Ethernet interfaces. 
Two interfaces in passthrough mode to the 25G SFP28 cages. 
Remaining two virtual Ethernet-PCIe interfaces are bridged with the Gigabit Ethernet port for management access. 
The user can configure all interfaces and settings freely since we are running fully functional RouterOS here.

 

BTW: as RouterOS v7 offers WIreguard and zerotier (zt as of today for AMD/AMD64 platforms, like the CCR2004) support natively, you can easily drop your complex Docker setups for running a VPN.

 

...nice price-tag, too for such a performance beast.

[Vr2Io]

Interesting product.

 

The CCR NIC card needs some time to boot up compared to ASIC-based setups. If the host system is up before the CCR card, it will not appear among the available devices. You should add a PCIe device initialization delay after power-up in the BIOS. Or you will need to re-initialize the PCIe devices from the HOST system.

[Ford Prefect]

yes, well....how often do you actually reboot your unraid box? maybe once a year or so?

If your BIOS does not support that, I'd gather there is a possibily to add the PCIe re-initialization somewhere in your GO file?

 

Biggest "problem" so far: There is no Switch with 25G/SFP28 ports in the Mikrotik line-up of devices (yet).

As SFP28 is single line, there is no option for breakout cables, like with QSFP+

Edited February 20, 2022 by Ford Prefect

[Display-Name]

Sorry to resurrect this older thread but, does anyone have more information about using the MikroTik "CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe" in a computer that is hosting unRAID? I am thinking going this route instead of having a separate machine running opnsense or something.

 

Thanks!