Hi,
I recently wanted to replace my current 2,5Gb NIC (a Realtek chipset on a generic PCIe card) with a relatively cheap Intel I225-V based M.2 card to free up the open PCIe x4 slot on my Gigabyte MC12-LE0 board for a GPU.
I installed the card (which has the exact same PCIe 3x1 lane configuration as the slot), it was recognized in TrueNAS and I added it to the bridge that my Realtek NIC was the only other member of before.
I then connected an Ethernet cable and both status LEDs just turned on and stayed on (solid).
The link was still shown as down in the UI and also on CLI.
I then tried the Intel NIC in a Windows PC where it worked perfectly fine…
Are there any known problems with this chipset or does my description of what I did raise any other red flags?
Hi,
The short answer is: Yes, the I225-V is known to have issues.
Personally, I have an Intel I225-V controller on-board on my ASUS mainboard for several years now. Its been a major pain, had tons of random disconnects/packets dropped impacting performance etc (under Windows). Maybe these issues were resolved in more recent HW/firmware updates, but for me this was a cause of major trouble and lots of troubleshooting and I remember this was a common problem for other users as well a while ago.
Maybe someone else can share their more recent stories, if this is better now. But I still find plenty of user complains with a quick google search. If you run into issues its likely related to the broken HW/firmware that other people have been experiencing. Personally, I would stay away from using it.
You have a genuine (if lowest end) and proven server-grade NIC onboard with the i210. Why do you want to add 2.5G? If 1 Gb/s is not enough, the next step is 10 Gb/s.
I do have an Intel X540-T2 based NIC as well but the performance of my HDD pool only saturates a 2,5Gb NIC and the 10Gb one uses a lot more energy.
2,5Gbit is still a large performance improvement compared to 1…
Just as an update: I tried updating the I225-V’s firmware to 194.
It did improve the situation on TrueNAS somewhat: I got a link.
When I unplugged the cable and plugged it in again it did not pick it up though.
I’ll go with a Realtek RTL8126 based one now (at 2,5Gb; I don’t have a 5Gb switch).
I recently tested a RTL8126 based M.2 card with Truenas Scale and it is not supported, not even with electric eel beta.
You should probably go for an RTL8125 based card, which seems to be working (however I could only test a USB version of it, which worked).
Fair enough. But there are plenty of cheap “no-name” 4*2.5G + 2*10G switches in all combinations of SFP+ and 10GBase-T ports, and DAC cables are also cheap, so it is neither difficult nor expensive to upgrade a small home network to have a 10G link to the NAS.
The i225 is at this point… old stock. when it was launched it had some flaws related to these chips needing cooling (even a tiny heatsink) and rarely being given one, and some hardware/firmware flaws that at this point have been mitigated with updated drivers and updated firmware. the majority of the complaints about this card are actually thermal issues.
the i226 is the current 2.5Gbe solution from intel. it is not that different but it is what you should be buying today, and you should look for a card with a heatsink, many simply don’t have heatsinks and will have issues with anything vaguely prolonged. also keep in mind that motherboard 2.5Gbe (from any vendor) is likely to suffer from a lack of cooling just because OEMs are penny pinchers.
as for I226, for a home server it is perfectly fine. don’t be dissuaded that it’s not ex-enterprise, it works fine, it is reliable. and it is just about the only faster than gigabit chip you should consider that fits into a pcie x1 slot IMO, which sucks but no one is making a 10Gbe pcie x1 card.
as for the Intel X540, keep in mind that it doesn’t support multi-gig. and if you want to mix 10G and 2.5G you should avoid sfp+ to 10GbaseT transceivers because they get hot (and in most switches they just bake), and other interesting issues like some switches not support pause frames, etc. I’d really recommend just using a cheap 2.5Gb switch with an SFP+ port or two, maybe connect it up with a bigger switch when you have more 10G devices.
I wouldn’t personally use the X540 unless you want to use it as a dedicated link between servers or have something with a 10Gbase-T interface, like some newer ONTs and consumer routers. 10GBaseT switches are just too expensive for their own good right now.
I had my NAS connect to my PC directly with the Intel X540 card.
My main PC is built on an ASUS X670E ProArt with built in 10G NIC …
As I said the NAS couldn’t nearly saturate the 10G link (at least from the HDD RAIDZ which stores most of my data).
In the future I may very well go 10G though, if I have an actual use case for it…
I’ve personally had quite good experiences with the I225-V on my main PCs mobo but that doesn’t mean that others don’t have (cooling) problems of course…
I totally agree with all the rest you said​:sweat_smile:
