Bad Idea? USB 3.0 Ethernet Adapter

[iliadz]

I have a dell r250 server with 2 embedded nics, 1Gb. I would like to use shared storage / iscsi. Small installation, 3 VMs in total will be running, mainly though 1 that will be active. Servers will be accessing a QNAP NAS, and the plan (at this point) is to use the 2.5Gb NIC on the nas.

I can purchase a 2.5Gb USB 3.0 ethernet card farily inexpensive for the R250, however, it's been way to long since I have been in the world of hardware on the server side. In the end, the USB bus should literally just communicate over the same PCI bus the cards do, so in my mind, it's a poor mans solution for this.

 

[mariol]

Theoretically, you can't install a network card horizontally via PCIe...?
I wouldn't do that with an USB card.

The question is also whether an ISCSI over 1-3 VMs with a single node without HA is not an overkill...
NFS would also be a possibility to export a file system from the Qnap.

Note that you cannot produce snapshots for your VMs with ISCSI.

 

[iliadz]

Thanks. I have since taken a different approach after research and recommendations here. I am officially using ZFS and replication to meet my needs. I may still try the USB dongle, just for fun, but it's no longer truly needed.

 

[mariol]

Perfect . Please mark your thread as "solved". You can do this by editing your first post and setting the flag.

 

[iliadz]

It wasn't really solved though. There aren't really factual responses to the question as of yet if someone else has a similar need. My needs changed, but the question still remains.

 

[rtorres]

I used to use a Realtek 2.5GbE USB Ethernet adapter for a couple of months and it ran OK.

By OK I mean after running into problems with Speed throttling (due to ASPM [Intel]) and then the USB totally failing on me (kinked cord, had to hold a certain way). I changed to an Intel I226 M.2 to 2.5GbE Ethernet adapter.

My mini PC running Proxmox was stashed away in a network cabinet and it seems like the 2.5GbE USB adapter didn't like 'dangling' a certain way that it got kinked.

Replaced it with one of these where the WiFi card was suppose to be plugged into (no card on this unit) and honestly have had 0 issues - ASPM left on too.



Sure the USB 2.5GbE adapter will work but I've read everywhere to avoid USB adapters - especially Realtek chipset.