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QNAP M.2 SSD carrier board with 10GB NIC

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ShawnF

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 10, 2014
196
16
Not sure if anyone has seen this interesting piece of hardware from QNAP. It is the QM2-2P10G1T.
The carrier holds 2 M.2 SSDs and QNAP sells separate models for NVME SSDs and SATA SSDs.

Doesn't work except in QNAP NAS devices - but would be awesome if someone could hack it to work with Macs.
[doublepost=1497407493][/doublepost]And here is a video with the device:

 
William_si

William_si

macrumors regular
Apr 4, 2016
188
55
Croatia
That is a x4 3.0 link - in a cMP even at full x4 2.0 the total speed is capped to 20GT/s, which means effectively only 900MB/s or less than half of normal for the SSD if the 10G port is fully used.

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EDIT: even worse, this is dual M.2 *and* only 2.0 native, even in a QNAP device it will have massive performance loss at 10G usage...

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Chipset support for 10G on macOS is fairly bad - Chelsio (newer only), Intel cards (with firmware hack to change pci id), Myricom (with driver from them, as Chelsion) - QNAP traditionally should be Broadcom which has pretty much zero driver/support.
 
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ShawnF

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 10, 2014
196
16
William_si said:
That is a x4 3.0 link - in a cMP even at full x4 2.0 the total speed is capped to 20GT/s, which means effectively only 900MB/s or less than half of normal for the SSD if the 10G port is fully used.

---

EDIT: even worse, this is dual M.2 *and* only 2.0 native, even in a QNAP device it will have massive performance loss at 10G usage...

---

Chipset support for 10G on macOS is fairly bad - Chelsio (newer only), Intel cards (with firmware hack to change pci id), Myricom (with driver from them, as Chelsion) - QNAP traditionally should be Broadcom which has pretty much zero driver/support.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Do you know which Chelsio cards support 10Gbe connection using Cat-6 or Cat-7 cable? The ones I saw all require additional transceiver.
 
William_si

William_si

macrumors regular
Apr 4, 2016
188
55
Croatia
Last edited:
Squuiid

Squuiid

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Oct 31, 2006
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ShawnF

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 10, 2014
196
16
Squuiid said:
If you don't want to modify the firmware on Intel cards as per my post then you can just buy the cards ready to go from Small Tree direct. They're the official Intel 10GbE NIC reseller for Mac and their macOS driver support is excellent.
https://www.small-tree.com/categories/10gb-ethernet-cards/
Intel 10GbE is the best IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah but oh so pricey. I am aiming at this Akitio 10Gbe NIC using Tehuti chipset and comes with Mac drivers for Yosemite and higher. Lowest I could find and cheaper than the Startech one which also uses Tehuti.

 
Squuiid

Squuiid

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Oct 31, 2006
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ShawnF said:
Yeah but oh so pricey. I am aiming at this Akitio 10Gbe NIC using Tehuti chipset and comes with Mac drivers for Yosemite and higher. Lowest I could find and cheaper than the Startech one which also uses Tehuti.
Click to expand...

Personally I'd pay the extra $45 and get an Intel card. Worth it for the Small Tree macOS drivers alone, ignoring the superior chipset and build quality. Admittedly you would have to modify the firmware but it is very simple to do and I've listed commands for this exact card on the post.
Intel Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540T1
 
Squuiid

Squuiid

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Oct 31, 2006
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William_si said:
Myricom is generally more enterprise than Intel....
Click to expand...
You've mis-read my post. OP is talking about getting a cheap Akitio or StarTech card with Tehuti chipset.
My reply is clearly in reference to those cards.
 
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