flambot Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Greetings, I've been having network connection issues with my server. It would appear the on-board NIC is dying or partially dead. Currently, it is only connecting at 100Mbs - which while good enough for streaming, but is lousy for writing to and from the server. I have done all the usual things like changing cables, network switch sockets, plugging directly into router etc. This hasn't fixed the issue. I need a new card to verify if it is something outside my server. I have an old card I installed, but the system doesn't appear to be able to see it. I am about to look at the bios for a setting that controls the network?? I have been looking at this card http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=387807, which seems to work with linux. I do not know what version of linux unraid uses. Most Mobo's use an on-board NIC, so you don't see much posted here about stand-alone cards. Any recommendations and advice on what to do would be appreciated. Thx. Update: Seems the only option in the bios is to disable the ONboard PCIE Gbe LAN. (There is an otion under that called LAN Option ROM - not sure what that is) I have also found this card http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=366099 Looking at the manufacturers site, this card states linux, while the above card only says windows. This one also mentions Jumbo Frames. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 One thing to consider is that unRAID will usually use the first NIC it finds, so if you have more than one you will need to disable the ones you don't want to use. Quote Link to comment
flambot Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 One thing to consider is that unRAID will usually use the first NIC it finds, so if you have more than one you will need to disable the ones you don't want to use. How do I do this? I can Disable the OB NIC in the bios. Will that make the system look elsewhere? Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 One thing to consider is that unRAID will usually use the first NIC it finds, so if you have more than one you will need to disable the ones you don't want to use. How do I do this? I can Disable the OB NIC in the bios. Will that make the system look elsewhere? yes Quote Link to comment
flambot Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 One thing to consider is that unRAID will usually use the first NIC it finds, so if you have more than one you will need to disable the ones you don't want to use. How do I do this? I can Disable the OB NIC in the bios. Will that make the system look elsewhere? yes Jolly Good! Quote Link to comment
roland Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Just a follow up on that. I was planning to add an extra network card to my system and run that second connection thru a vpn router. Then force the transmission docker to use that connection. Are you saying unRaid will only recognize one card? Thanks Quote Link to comment
HellDiverUK Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Go for an Intel i210AT card. There's lots on eBay that are HP branded for very little money. I have one and it's been excellent. Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Just a follow up on that. I was planning to add an extra network card to my system and run that second connection thru a vpn router. Then force the transmission docker to use that connection. Are you saying unRaid will only recognize one card? Thanks You can get it to use 2 with bonding. Not sure about your scenario. I'm not aware of anyone making dockers use another NIC, or any direct hardware access for that matter. Maybe a VM could do what you want. Quote Link to comment
brian89gp Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Go for an Intel i210AT card. There's lots on eBay that are HP branded for very little money. I have one and it's been excellent. +1 vote for using an Intel card. Quote Link to comment
archedraft Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Go for an Intel i210AT card. There's lots on eBay that are HP branded for very little money. I have one and it's been excellent. +1 vote for using an Intel card. +1 too. Spend the extra money because it will be worth it. Quote Link to comment
flambot Posted April 30, 2015 Author Share Posted April 30, 2015 Thx for the recommendation. I couldn't find a i210AT on ebay, or here locally in NZ, but there is a i210-T1. Not sure if it's a similar card or not. Quote Link to comment
flambot Posted May 1, 2015 Author Share Posted May 1, 2015 Prior to receiving the advice here about the i1210-At, I ordered this card... http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=366099 I installed it today without issue and it was recognised out of the box. I am now running at 1000 Mb/s again, which I'm rather pleased about. Thank you for the assistance. Very much appreciated. Quote Link to comment
HellDiverUK Posted May 1, 2015 Share Posted May 1, 2015 Prior to receiving the advice here about the i1210-At, I ordered this card... http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=366099 I installed it today without issue and it was recognised out of the box. I am now running at 1000 Mb/s again, which I'm rather pleased about. Thank you for the assistance. Very much appreciated. Shame your gigabit will come to a shuddering standstill as it all tries to squeeze through the PCI interface... Quote Link to comment
flambot Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 Prior to receiving the advice here about the i1210-At, I ordered this card... http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=366099 I installed it today without issue and it was recognised out of the box. I am now running at 1000 Mb/s again, which I'm rather pleased about. Thank you for the assistance. Very much appreciated. Shame your gigabit will come to a shuddering standstill as it all tries to squeeze through the PCI interface... How much difference will it really make? I brought a PCI-E card at the same time, but never tried it because this one seemed to have the better specs. I guess that's a PCI card as well. While it might not seem as fast as the on-board nic, it doesn't seem that much slower. Takes about 4 min to write from - to the server with a 4-5gb iso. Was taking about 9 mins with the on-board only running at 100Mb/s. Ultimately, it hasn't been in long enough to get a good feel of it. Quote Link to comment
Frank1940 Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Prior to receiving the advice here about the i1210-At, I ordered this card... http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=366099 I installed it today without issue and it was recognised out of the box. I am now running at 1000 Mb/s again, which I'm rather pleased about. Thank you for the assistance. Very much appreciated. Shame your gigabit will come to a shuddering standstill as it all tries to squeeze through the PCI interface... How much difference will it really make? I brought a PCI-E card at the same time, but never tried it because this one seemed to have the better specs. I guess that's a PCI card as well. While it might not seem as fast as the on-board nic, it doesn't seem that much slower. Takes about 4 min to write from - to the server with a 4-5gb iso. Was taking about 9 mins with the on-board only running at 100Mb/s. Ultimately, it hasn't been in long enough to get a good feel of it. That smiling face should have been a clue that the comment was in jest. Absolute minimum bandwidth on any PCI buss is 133MB/s and ranges up to 533MB/s. (If you have a 64 bit capable CPU, I would think the minimum speed would be at least 266MB/s.) So there is ample bandwidth for 1000Mb/sec ehternet signal. Quote Link to comment
Squid Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Prior to receiving the advice here about the i1210-At, I ordered this card... http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=366099 I installed it today without issue and it was recognised out of the box. I am now running at 1000 Mb/s again, which I'm rather pleased about. Thank you for the assistance. Very much appreciated. Shame your gigabit will come to a shuddering standstill as it all tries to squeeze through the PCI interface... How much difference will it really make? I brought a PCI-E card at the same time, but never tried it because this one seemed to have the better specs. I guess that's a PCI card as well. While it might not seem as fast as the on-board nic, it doesn't seem that much slower. Takes about 4 min to write from - to the server with a 4-5gb iso. Was taking about 9 mins with the on-board only running at 100Mb/s. Ultimately, it hasn't been in long enough to get a good feel of it. Under normal circumstances, a PCI ethernet card can easily sustain gigabit speeds. However, you also have 2x Promise TX4 cards to handle the hard drives, and those are also PCI. The PCI bus is shared, under very high I/O situations (like maybe trying to copy a movie during a parity check) your speeds on the hard drives and on the ethernet is going to drop significantly. Quote Link to comment
flambot Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 In this case, the Promise TX4 cards are only going to be used for other drives. Only one drive is connected at present to one card, the other is attached to my spare slot in my hot-swap bay. IN time, once I get another 6Tb drive, I will remove the drive on the TX4, and then probably remove one of the cards. It will only be used for a preclear drive. Thanks for the comments. They help me to understand the system better. Quote Link to comment
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