realtek nics are generally best to avoid due to bugs in the oss drivers and realteks reluctance of being open makes them a "Cheapo" solution. Try sticking to intel pro nics, esp. if using them for VM. Another good thing to look at is the option flags the nics support.. VLAN MTU/HW(de)Tagging, TSO etc. These things take load of your host when guests are savaging I/O.
Daniel Llewellyn <diddledan@???> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I'm trying to find some PCI Gigabit Network Interface Cards that I can use in a virtualisation server (32bit i.e. NOT PCI-X) - the server(s) are two re-tasked desktop machines which I doubt the ability to run PCI-e x4 in the spare PCI-e x16 (x8 electrical) slots. While there are plenty of el-cheapo gigabit adapters I wonder about their ability to keep-up with server duties (several VMs with public-facing services and a router/firewall software appliance - all hobbyist though). Ideally I would like 4 gigabit ports split between the two PCs (2 in each), and have the aforementioned PCI-e x16(8 electrical) slot available in both machines (though the ability to run non-gfx is in question), and two spare 32bit PCI slots in each.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Would el-cheapo realtek 8169-based be suitable for server duties?
>
>Thanks for reading this and any help you may give,
> Daniel
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Please post to: Hampshire@???
Web Interface:
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
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http://www.hantslug.org.uk
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