ESXi 6.x 10gig? Help please :(

[BLKMGK]

I'm attempting to setup an ESXi 6.x server and would like to run 10gig interconnects to a dedicated storage box - likely running 2012 R2. I've got no experience with networking faster than 1gig cards and the 10gig options are spinning my head!

I've purchased a pair of Mellanox cards and cabling however it looks like they may have EOL'd the product and aren't supporting ESXi 6. This is a home lab and I'm trying to do some learning on my own in hopes of using the knowledge to improve the infrastructure at work so I'd appreciate some advice. Is there a reasonably priced card out there that folks have had good luck with? I'd love to find a good dummies guide for this technology too

Mellanox appears to be pushing their higher end cards for ESX 6 so something a little more budget oriented would be helpful, multiple ports if possible? These two boxes will be direct connected so no switch. This is going in a G6 HP and yeah that's no longer on the HCL either so my fingers are crossed I don't have issues. <sigh> I intend to run the HP image on the box.

Thanks!

 

[dasaint]

Can you give us more information on the Mellanox Cards you purchased? model number? does the esxi native driver identify it? or does it not even popup as a ethernet controller?

 

[Eulogy]

Looks like the one OP linked is an HBA (Infiniband), not one of the ethernet cards.

It would be helpful to know what issues the OP is actually having/seeing though.

 

[BLKMGK]

The link I posted is to the auction that I received the cards from. At this point I've not yet tried installing them but when I went looking for drivers (after the fact - dumb) I found that they were apparently EOL as of about 3 months ago. Digging around on their site I've found one driver for ESX 6 here and it doesn't appear to support my card. Worth giving it a shot?

Archive.org allowed me to see some previous versions of the support pages out there FWIW but nothing found that seemed helpful. head still spinning

 

[BLKMGK]

Looks like the one OP linked is an HBA (Infiniband), not one of the ethernet cards.

It would be helpful to know what issues the OP is actually having/seeing though.

Yes, this card can support Infiniband but it apparently also supports ethernet. Auction listed it as an MHQH29B-XTR - this might not be completely accurate though as it has a short bracket vs the tall that the manual (PDF) claims. It's listed as a VPI card which I believe means it can use both IB and ethernet, however I find no MAC on the card - starting to wonder if the description was accurate!

I've not yet put the card into the server. I wanted to track down drivers and make sure I understood what was required first. I'm on 5.5 now and intending to move to 6.x. When I do this I'm also looking to add storage off the box in another chassis which is why I'm looking at 10gb cards. My home setup won't much abuse this but the systems at work sure will and I want to understand this better before twiddling hardware there.

 

[dasaint]

PM sent