NetEffect 10Gb Adapter Compatibility

[idata]

etnerCan any of the following 3 NetEffect 10Gbe Ethernet Adapters that use PCIe v1.1 x8 lane be used on a Dell 2950 II that has PCIe v1.0 with an open x8 slot? I have not been able to find any other 10Gbe network adapter that supported anything less than PCIe 2.0+ so if this will work I can purchase my 10GbE iSCSI storage array.

http://ark.intel.com/products/55362/NetEffect-Ethernet-Server-Cluster-Adapter-CX4 NetEffect™ Ethernet Server Cluster Adapter CX4http://ark.intel.com/products/55363/NetEffect-Ethernet-Server-Cluster-Adapter-DA NetEffect™ Ethernet Server Cluster Adapter DAhttp://ark.intel.com/products/55365/NetEffect-Ethernet-Server-Cluster-Adapter-SFP-SR NetEffect™ Ethernet Server Cluster Adapter SFP+ SR

System Interface Type

PCIe v1.1 (2.5GT/s)

PCIe v1.1 (2.5GT/s)

PCIe v1.1 (2.5GT/s)

Speed & Slot Width

2.5 GT/s, x8 Lane

2.5 GT/s, x8 Lane

2.5 GT/s, x8 Lane

Thank you,

David Ryan

[Mark_H_Intel]

Hi David,

Yes. You could use any of the NetEffect adapters, but you can also use newer adapters, which are backwards compatible with your older PCIe slots.

The older PCIe slots are a bit slower than the newer slots, but you can still get good performance with one of the newer adapters. Just make sure you use a slot that is electrically x8, not just a x8 connector. As I recall one slot on the riser is only electrically x4 even though the connector is physically x8.

If you are looking at SFP+ adapters check out http://ark.intel.com/products/series/69658 Intel&# 174; Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X520 Series.

If you are thinking about twisted pair, you might want to look at http://ark.intel.com/products/series/58952 Intel&# 174; Ethernet Converged Network .Adapter X540 Series.

Unless you were running an OS with iWarp support that you were going to enable, I would go with the X520 or X540 series.

Mark H

[idata]

Mark,

Thank you so much for responding. This has really been confusing me. I do plan on migrating the VDI servers to newer Dell R720's but I built this successful VDI test environment and wanted to be able to migrate the storage and enhance the networking infrustructure. In fact I originally was going to use the X540 adapters with twisted pair which you have now gave me enough confidence to use them.

I'm running Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition as the VDI host servers so do you think using iWARP with the NetEffect adapters or the X540 series would give me the best performance?

Thank you very much,

Dave

[Mark_H_Intel]

Hi David,

Since you will eventually want to install the adapters in the new server, I would go with the X540 series.

The NetEffect adapters have an RDMA stack that could be used with an application that can take advantage of the stack. Both ends of the link would require an RDMA stack and an application that can use the stack. I am thinking that in your case, you will be making use of the TCP/IP stack, so the X540 would be better for performance.

Mark H