[Cerowrt-devel] 10GigE nics and SFP+ modules?

[Dave Taht]

On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 12:05 PM,  <dpreed at reed.com> wrote:
> I have been happy with the PicoPSU power supplies which are tiny ATX PSU's
> that go up to 160 W.

I love those too, it is really remarkable how they have shrunk the electronics,
but in this case having an internal power supply seems best. Also, as it
appears the 10GigE card has a large heat sink, and the rangely only rated
to 40C, having more cooling in a rackmount case seems to be a good idea.

I haven't a clue what to do with 8 cores (20W TDP), my original intent was
to get the lower end 4 core box (9.5W TDP), but was unable to find one.

>
> They take 12V input, which can be supplied by an external brick or a small
> 12V power supply of the sort used to supply power to lighting circuits (I
> use a Meanwell NES-350-12 to power 3 boards with individual PicoPSU's.

that's clever.

>
>
>
> For home experiments I have been using the less expensive X520-DA2 Dual
> copper Cat6 10 GigE boards from Intel, at about $500 per card. They are well
> supported in Linux.  SFP+ is the way to go for fiber.
>
>
>
> Also, Netgear sells a small 8 port copper interface 10 GigE switch for <
> $1000.
> http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/unmanaged-plus/10g-plus-switch.aspx
> It's an 8-port "desktop" switch, which means unmanaged, etc.  I haven't
> tried that.  For various reasons my home machines are connected directly
> with each other, without a switch, but you want a switch, and this is far
> less pricey.

Well, while measuring what goes on in a 10GigE switch nowadays is on
my todo list, I don't know to what extent I can drive 10GigE with the gear
I have available in the first place, and my budget is already busted
as it is. First up is getting a useful build of openwrt for it.

(getting a basic build of openwrt head (chaos calmer) was a snap)

I've also
long desired to have an x86 build in general to run in a virtualized
environment to do gui work better.

> I think the copper option might get you 100m of distance, but I'm not sure.

I may have a shot at some dark fiber over a 20km distance, so my hope
is to connect two DCs together ultimately. Or I might run a few hundred
meters of fiber around the campus.

> All that said, if you want high end stuff, you might want to go for the X540
> fiber product line and switches that seem to be $5,000 or more, plus the

The X540 card is not that much more expensive than the X520.

> cost of the SFP+ cables,

Longer runs are very expensive and it's not clear what sort of
equipment is required to cut and connect bulk cable.

>...  At least a factor of 10 more expensive, for
> better latency in the switch, fancy management features in the switch and
> more reach in the cabling for less electrical power.  Depends on what you
> want.
>
>
>
> We use the higher end stuff at work.
>
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>
> On Saturday, September 6, 2014 2:36pm, "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>
> said:
>
>> Given that the rangeley series of processors apparently has support in
>> openwrt already, I picked up one last week.
>>
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-Atom-C2758-Motherboards-MBD-A1SRI-2758F-O/dp/B00FM4M7TQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=C2758
>>
>> I'm still looking for a good case for it - the first rack-mount case I
>> got had mini-itx mounts but a non-ATX power supply, suggestions? Only
>> need 50 watts or less of power supply...
>>
>> Where my brain falls off a cliff is sorting through the SFP+ options.
>> I've been told to seek out the intel chipset cards as the best
>> supported under linux, so would this be good? Are there other options?
>>
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Gigabit-Dual-Server-Adapter/dp/B001AGFXTQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1410027344&sr=8-10&keywords=10GigE+nic
>>
>> Or these?
>>
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Ethernet-X520-SR2-Server-Adapter/dp/B002I9JCQY/ref=pd_cp_pc_0
>>
>> I'd like single mode (20km+) fiber support, but also to try whatever
>> mode is more common in DCs... ?
>>
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Ethernet-ETHERNET-MODULE-10GBase-SR/dp/B009KZNWE2/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1410028448&sr=1-1&keywords=Intel+SFP%2B
>>
>> These are the most expensive items (with the exception of snapon) I've
>> ever bought on behalf of bufferbloat.net, and it feels weird to be
>> doing this after fighting all month with 100mbit issues... but I've
>> been dying to get some 10GigE data, so...
>>
>> --
>> Dave Täht
>>
>> https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/make-wifi-fast
>> _______________________________________________
>> Cerowrt-devel mailing list
>> Cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-devel
>>



-- 
Dave Täht

https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/make-wifi-fast