Help with upgrading opnsense box to multi gig

jalzoo · 2 Dec 2023 at 12:30

I am making some upgrades to my home network, I was wondering if anyone can make any recommendations on a multi gig NIC for opnsense. I have looked around the internet including many reddit posts but there is so much confusion. Some people are saying to get a SFP+ card and buy the modules separate but this doesn't seem cost effective to me as the card is £40 and the modules are £40 each. Is buying 2x 2.5gb single port cards from amazon a viable option?. Would a dual port be able to handle symmetrical 2.5gb in an x1 PCIE 2.0 slot?.

If anyone has any suggestions on a budget solution it would be much appreciated.

ChrisD. · 2 Dec 2023 at 12:58

What's the requirement?

10 Gb SFP modules are not £40, they are half that on fs.com and even less if you buy used.

andy_mk3 · 2 Dec 2023 at 13:27

jalzoo said:
Would a dual port be able to handle symmetrical 2.5gb in an x1 PCIE 2.0 slot?

With PCIe 2.0 being 0.5GB/s per lane, then no, far from it.

What hardware are you using? PCIE 2.0 is very old now.

lmfy2k · 6 Dec 2023 at 06:52

I use a

1x 10Gb Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX312A-XCBT
1x 10Gb DAC
1x 10GBASE-T SFP+ RJ45 Transceiver Module (FS.com SFP-10G-T)

Works well with proxmox and opnsense as a vm.