Looking for 2.5 gb nic

[JapanFreak]

Hi i am looking for a 2.5 gb nic that does not break the bank and is 100 percent work with unraid : 6.12.4

i was looking for a while and the more i look the more i see nics that are not compatible only work at 1gb/s

and the more scared i get about choosing one

initially i wanted to get https://www.qnap.com/en/product/qxg-2g1t-i225

but somone on the unraid reddit pointed out that it might be locked to qnap nas and not work with unraid

any recommendations welcome , Thanks in advance

[ConnerVT]

I am using this one. - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09SSD3HMB

 

Intel i225, PCIe x1 slot, ~$25 USD.  I originally started with a Realtek card, but I couldn't get it to work reliably near 2.5Gb speeds in both directions with the other two 2.5Gb capable devices on my network.  Installed it when running 6.10.3, now on 6.12.4.  Plug and play.  No issues.

[JapanFreak]

1 hour ago, ConnerVT said:

I am using this one. - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09SSD3HMB

 

Intel i225, PCIe x1 slot, ~$25 USD.  I originally started with a Realtek card, but I couldn't get it to work reliably near 2.5Gb speeds in both directions with the other two 2.5Gb capable devices on my network.  Installed it when running 6.10.3, now on 6.12.4.  Plug and play.  No issues.

sadly that one is not available in stock in my part of woods (Amazon)

il put it on my wishlist maybe it will come back in stock

[JapanFreak]

18 minutes ago, JapanFreak said:

sadly that one is not available in stock in my part of woods (Amazon)

il put it on my wishlist maybe it will come back in stock

i found another one with Intel I225-V do you think it will work since is the same chipset? even tho the V at the end concerns me

PCIe 2.5 Gigabit ETHERNET 10/100 / 1000 (1G) / 2.5G. RJ45. CHIPSET Intel I225-V

[optiman]

On 10/10/2023 at 5:43 PM, ConnerVT said:

I am using this one. - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09SSD3HMB

 

Intel i225, PCIe x1 slot, ~$25 USD.  I originally started with a Realtek card, but I couldn't get it to work reliably near 2.5Gb speeds in both directions with the other two 2.5Gb capable devices on my network.  Installed it when running 6.10.3, now on 6.12.4.  Plug and play.  No issues.

@ConnerVT  Thanks for posting that link.  I too am looking to add a 2.5 and I was going to try the TRENDnet TEG-25GECTX which has the Realtek 8125 chipset, until I read this thread.  Given the IO CREST with intel chip is plug and play with unraid, no brainer.  Thanks again!

[ConnerVT]

Good choice.  In fact, I have that same TEG-25GECTX in a drawer under the desk my server resides.  Had all sorts of issues with that card, with iperf tests running from 1.6G all the way down to 400M (between the server and my 2.5G firewall).  It was before the RealTek driver plugins hit Community Apps, so maybe it can be made to work now.  But the Intel chips are plug and play forget and nics are the same price, so why bother?

 

Someday I will pop the unused card into my backup server.  Right now, I only have available jacks in my 1G switches, the 2.5G is full.  As the server only wakes twice a month to rsync backup media from the main server, 1G is more than fast enough.

[jit-010101]

Why the heck would anyone ever buy a I225 out of free will ...

 

Don't you know the giant revision circus that Intel pulled because when you run it a 2.5GBits that thing will pull a pile because of Hardware-Design faults? This started in 2020 and didn't stop until 2023 - i226 ... after 5-Revisions and a pile of driver updates. They even admited some of the hardware design faults behind it (at least the first one).

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raptor-lake-motherboard-ethernet-flaw

 

They straighly made a cut after that and released I226 because of all the drama - apparently I226 also had drama at the start, but apparently they FINALLY tackled it after a few million driver-updates. At least I'm not seeing any issues with the ones I do have ...

 

I226-V is the lowest you should ever get.

 

In fact if you can skip 2.5GBe entirely (Realtek has issues here apprently) and go straight for 10GBe SFP

 

No Intel 2.5GBe is not just Plug and Play like 1GBe NICs back in the day from PFSense days ... same goes for their Wifi NICs ax210, unreliable as crap (albeit ax200 was good)... had to switch back to a Realtek one to get a stable connection again because of constant drop-outs.

 

The days of "buy any intel and it will be painless" are long gone (well at least their 10GBe NICs seem to be trouble free so far) 

Edited November 8, 2023 by jit-010101

[ConnerVT]

The I226 didn't solve the issue either.  Doesn't take much Googling to find many reports, even a few from Intel itself.

 

The question is how the issue manifests itself in the real world.  The vast majority of complaints come from home users running Windows machines, with drivers from who knows where and when.

 

I have i225-B3 chips (x4) in my firewall running OPNsense.  Would of went with the i226, but at the time they weren't supported by pfsense (was undecided which I would go with, pf or OPN).  Tried a Realtek in my Unraid server, nothing but problems, and spent a couple of weeks trying everything before switching to a i225-B3 PCIe nic.  Immediately had no issues, Unraid and the default driver and settings reliably performed.  My switch runs Realtek (works great) and a Windows desktop has a USB Realtek (never really sees full speed, but at least 2Gbe).

 

In all, 2.5Gbe is a hack by design.  If you really need to have 2.5Gbe throughput all of the time, you really should be looking at 10Gb fiber.  But for a home network, 2.5Gbe and a little attention to your setup fits the bill.  One day this week I downloaded over 8TB of data - 800Mb/s (I throttled 80% of my 1Gb fiber) to my Unraid box.  No issue at all.  yeah, only 1/3 of the 2.5Gb/s speed but a huge amount of continuous data.