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10GbE NIC for Mac OS X?

E

evilzardoz

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 19, 2008
41
6
Hi,

Looking for a PCI-Express 10GbE NIC to suit a thunderbolt enclosure for a Retina MacBook Pro. I've currently got a few Intel X520 NICs which I picked up for ~200 on the eBay that work an absolute treat under Windows but no love under OSX due to drivers.

Of course, Small Tree will charge me, what, five times that price for the same card with their drivers? Errr, nope.

Are there any 10GbE NICs (third party, whatever) with drivers that have been written for OSX?
 
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evilzardoz said:
... that work an absolute treat under Windows but no love under OSX due to drivers.

Of course, Small Tree will charge me, what, five times that price for the same card with their drivers? Errr, nope.
Click to expand...

Well if it doesn't work then it is really the drivers that is the primary price difference.


Are there any 10GbE NICs (third party, whatever) with drivers that have been written for OSX?
Click to expand...

Seems like this is really about trying find some else's drivers to snag off the web since you already have the cards. In terms of other vendors though.....

Besides Small Tree ... a couple

Another response already mentioned ATTO. (similar price range as Small Tree though)


http://www.attotech.com/products/family.php?id=14

Sonnet ( note card is without transceiver. )


http://www.sonnettech.com/product/presto10gbe.html


Myricom

https://www.myricom.com/support/downloads/myri10ge.html


Solarflare
http://www.solarflare.com/04-12-12-...ideo-Editing-File-Transfer-Performance-Record


None of these are in the "bargain discount" range.

I think Windows hits because Microsoft and Intel team up to get a basic driver bundled with Windows. Not sure why Apple snores on getting this weaved into the core OS. Especially with their "bulk storage is external" stance.
 
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not a lot of info on 10gbe under OSX - has anyone tested any of these cards and have comparative data results etc? Small Tree wins on confidence due to being based on Intel hardware, but Myricom is available at a fraction of the price though various deals etc
 
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ianj1972 said:
not a lot of info on 10gbe under OSX - has anyone tested any of these cards and have comparative data results etc? Small Tree wins on confidence due to being based on Intel hardware, but Myricom is available at a fraction of the price though various deals etc
Click to expand...

ATTO also uses Intel chipset. I have 2, and they have floated between my Magma enclosure, 2 4,1 MacPros and my z820 without issue. Super fast.
 
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Sorry to necro this thread, but it's one of the few interesting results when searching for "mac 10GbE".

Has anyone actually checked to what point does macOS take advantage of the 10GbE speeds? Linux and FreeBSD do need extra help, particularly when it comes to dealing with small packets (64 bytes), and so there's the likes of kernel bypass solutions like DPDK and Netmap. But those aren't available for macOS, so I wonder.

Of course, given that macOS is probably not expected to be found in a server, it doesn't really need to worry about this kind of traffic; it surely cares much more about big packets, with which it's much easier to reach wire speeds. But still, there's 40GbE, and 100GbE, which also get more demanding...
 
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mijail said:
Has anyone actually checked to what point does macOS take advantage of the 10GbE speeds? Linux and FreeBSD do need extra help, particularly when it comes to dealing with small packets (64 bytes)
Click to expand...
It's ok but definitely not optimised. SMB signing for example decimates SMB performance. Its must be turned off to fully utilise the bandwidth.
Performance over AFP is actually excellent however.

See my post here for a bit more detail:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-nics-to-use-small-tree-os-x-drivers.1968456/
 
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Two here based on the Tehuti chipset which are more affordable and they come in 10gb Base T. Compatibility from Mavericks upwards and comes with official drivers.

Startech ST10GSPEXNB

Akitio NBASETNC-A01

ST10000SPEX.main.jpg
 
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Another one for the list, altough expensive: Chelsio provides macOS drivers for some of their cards, including the T520-CR (2 x 10Gbit SFP+) and T580-CR (2 x 40GBit QSFP). Very fast, reliable and compatible with Thunderbolt enclosures.
 
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ShawnF said:
Two here based on the Tehuti chipset which are more affordable and they come in 10gb Base T. Compatibility from Mavericks upwards and comes with official drivers.

Startech ST10GSPEXNB

Akitio NBASETNC-A01

ST10000SPEX.main.jpg
Click to expand...
Just got my Startech 10Gbe NIC today. Installed on my Mac Pro 5.1 (Flashed from 4.1) running Yosemite.

There was an initial problem where OSX detected the card but refused to let the card connect to my switch. I did a PRAM and SMC reset and it worked fine after that. Planning to connect this directly to the 10gbe port of my QNAP TVS-471 and offload all my FCPX RAW footage and RAW photos on my Mac Pro to the SSD in the QNAP. That will save tons of space for my VMs.
 
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ShawnF said:
Asus just released at 10Gbe Base-T adapter for just US$99 based on Aquantia chipset.

Click to expand...
Beware of cheap NICs....

Cheap NICs often leave out the offload engines, so that they can use a lot of CPU when in heavy use.

More expensive "server" NICs have onboard processing to handle checksumming and other parts of the network protocol stack - so the server NICs will need much less CPU to process a given bandwidth load.

I'm not saying that cheap NICs are bad, just to be aware that all NICs aren't the same - and the more expensive ones often use much less CPU for a given network load.
 
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AidenShaw said:
Beware of cheap NICs....

Cheap NICs often leave out the offload engines, so that they can use a lot of CPU when in heavy use.

More expensive "server" NICs have onboard processing to handle checksumming and other parts of the network protocol stack - so the server NICs will need much less CPU to process a given bandwidth load.

I'm not saying that cheap NICs are bad, just to be aware that all NICs aren't the same - and the more expensive ones often use much less CPU for a given network load.
Click to expand...
Agreed. You are much better off buying an Intel X540-T1 and flashing it to use macOS Small Tree drivers.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-nics-to-use-small-tree-os-x-drivers.1968456/

Small Tree are Intel's official NIC reseller for Mac.
 
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Apologize for high jacking thread, but for the typical whole-house cat5e network setup, there really isn't a 10G-Base-T option is there? At least, that's what I gleaned from the GadgetBlues video review posted earlier...
 
pastrychef said:
Just look for SolarFlare 10GbE cards on Ebay. No need to flash. Drivers easily available on their website. Plug and go. Works great.

What are the options for 10GbE on Mac Pros? | MacRumors Forums
Click to expand...

Sorry to post so late to this, but I just picked up a SolarFlare card and have been unable to make it work in 10.10 Yosemite. System Profiler continues to show the card as "Driver Installed - No" for that PCI slot, even after I have installed the signed drivers for 10.9.

Anybody have any tips?

Edit: 6-core 2010 Mac Pro. Not a Hackintosh
 
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Eric Mittan said:
Sorry to post so late to this, but I just picked up a SolarFlare card and have been unable to make it work in 10.10 Yosemite. System Profiler continues to show the card as "Driver Installed - No" for that PCI slot, even after I have installed the signed drivers for 10.9.

Anybody have any tips?

Edit: 6-core 2010 Mac Pro. Not a Hackintosh
Click to expand...

Which card did you get? Are you sure the drivers for your particular card?
 
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Eric Mittan said:
Sorry to post so late to this, but I just picked up a SolarFlare card and have been unable to make it work in 10.10 Yosemite. System Profiler continues to show the card as "Driver Installed - No" for that PCI slot, even after I have installed the signed drivers for 10.9.

Anybody have any tips?

Edit: 6-core 2010 Mac Pro. Not a Hackintosh
Click to expand...
Is your Mac internet connected?
If so, running Yosemite is rather naive from a security standpoint.
I would upgrade to Sierra at the very least.
 
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