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I often get asked to to recommend a network card for use in a work or home VMware ESX(i) home lab. As well as the onboard NICs of my HP Proliant ML110/ML115’s, that I generally use for the service console traffic, I use either a PCIe based dual port Intel Pro 1000 PT or HP NC380T. Both are on the VMware ESX I/O compatibility list.
I have used both in anger for sometime now and have found them both to offer solid performance event under heavy load. I bought my cards off of EBay which I found to regularly have both cards available for sale.
Can’t beat a picture of kit (brings out the anorak in me 🙂 ) so here they are (even took the photos myself)…
Intel Pro 1000 PT
HP NC380T
[…] Simon Seagrave’s home lab (TechHead.Co.Uk) […]
[…] to add a PCI or PCIe based network adapter which has the jumbo frames functionality. I use these two VMware ESX/ESXi approved network cards mentioned in my earlier post here, both of which support jumbo frames and can be picked up for a […]
How many network adapters do I need, I have one on board and dual intel card.
I know I need a port for management, and one for storage, is a 3rd required for vmotion? what about LAN
Hi Kashif,
If it is for a small lab environment you probably only need one NIC and just use VLANs to separate:
– Managment
– Storage (iSCSI/NFS)
– vMotion
– Fault Tolerance (assuming you want to use FT)
Just remember to enable VLANs at all points between the ESX/ESXi host and the storage device/appliance including your switch.
Hope this helps.
Simon
Hello,
I bought one of these cards and it does not fit my ML115 G5. The back plate is too short.
Hi,
Sorry I forget to mention it is a Intel Pro 1000 PT card