Looking for comments on a good/cheap USB3 RJ45 NIC for my home lab

Erick Perez

Active Member
Jul 13, 2018
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Good day to all.

I am currently expanding a home lab for educational purposes, which consists of two HP EliteDesk 800 G3 35W Mini PCs (Intel i5-6500T, 2.5GHz, with a single built-in RJ45 gigabit port). Due to the lack of PCI expansion slots on these devices, my only option for adding additional network interfaces is to use USB 3.0-based RJ45 Network Interface Cards (NICs).

My next objective is to implement Software-Defined Networking (SDN) on Proxmox. To achieve this, I aim to add two or more NIC ports to each EliteDesk unit. However, I have come across discussions suggesting that early attempts to use Realtek RTL8156-based USB NICs under Proxmox 8.3 have resulted in suboptimal performance. These USB NICs are widely available on platforms like AliExpress at relatively low costs (around $10 per unit).

Given this context, I would greatly appreciate your recommendations for cost-effective, reliable USB-based RJ45 NICs that are compatible with Proxmox and suitable for a home lab environment.

Thank you in advance for your insights and assistance.

Best regards,
 
FANTEC UMP-E1000 is working out of the box (kernel 6.11.11-1). No need to install additional driver. Is recognized as Realtek R8152.
 
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