Inexpensive 2.5GB switch?

[keil]

Give me one more week to prepare something to show since I've been too busy with other urgent projects these days. Sorry.

[domih]

Here we go.


You can see the H2 Net Card from 1min 13sec.
It has four 2.5GbE ports with a M.2 PCIe edge connection.

It will be available 2 weeks later with a $45 price tag hopefully.

[mad_ady]

It looks really nice! I was expecting a ribbon cable (to be easily pluggable in other non-odroid products)!
It would be best to make it compatible with other future odroid products that will have an m2 connector.

[AreaScout]

Interesting ! Good idea, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN switch on N2/+ NAS

RG

[domih]

It looks really nice! I was expecting a ribbon cable (to be easily pluggable in other non-odroid products)!
It would be best to make it compatible with other future odroid products that will have an m2 connector.

I don't think that would help, HK said they were modifying the UEFI, probably, my guess, to bifurcate the PCIe Gen 2 x4 into 4 x PCIe Gen2 x1 (1 lane per NIC). So even if you were to buy an M.2 extender cable (e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/M-2-NGFF-key-M ... 3056921386) to be able to place the add-on board somewhere in a case you would still need to be able to bifurcate the M.2 x4 on the <brand_name> motherboard into 4 x1 lanes. I have not seen such capability on any motherboard that crossed my desk so far.

The fact that the add-on board integrates with the H2/H2+ board keeps the solution compact and does not require additional mounting brackets. I guess this is one of the reasons why they end up with such a low pricing.

[domih]

Interesting ! Good idea, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN switch on N2/+ NAS

RG

You mean H2+, right?

[brad]

Interesting ! Good idea, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN switch on N2/+ NAS

RG

You mean H2+, right?

For H2+ it would be 6x 2.5Gb LAN switch

[powerful owl]

What package would one install to use this to add the switch capability to H2/+? By that, I mean can I add something to say an Ubuntu desktop install, or is it necessary to install Openwrt or Opnsense and then add a plugin or 2 to get file services?

[mad_ady]

To create a soft switch (packets are switched by the cpu) you'd need to install bridge-utils, create a new bridge (brctl addbr br0), and add interfaces to it (brctl addif enpxxx0).
So it should work with any linux os that supports the driver.
We should open a new thread/subforum to discuss performance and wacky setups

[fvolk]

Here we go.
It will be available 2 weeks later with a $45 price tag hopefully.

So this Christmas I'll buy myself an H2+ with this extension card, finally upgrading my rev-A H2 server, and with LTS kernel 5.10 all the driver/firmware problems should be solved too? Yes?

I use 2.5" drives and a type 3 case, the sides left open for better cooling, does this extension card fit with type 3 case?

[domih]

Interesting ! Good idea, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN switch on N2/+ NAS

RG

You mean H2+, right?

For H2+ it would be 6x 2.5Gb LAN switch

Yes, H2+ with 6 x 2.5 GbE ports and H2 with 2 x 1 GbE and 4 x 2.5 GbE ports But not for the N2 and N2+ which top with only one 2.5 GbE port via USB adapter.

[mad_ady]

New year's resolution: May all Hardkernel's new boards next year start with different letters in the alphabet than N or H!

[Mullcom]

Interesting ! Good idea, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN switch on N2/+ NAS

RG

You mean H2+, right?

For H2+ it would be 6x 2.5Gb LAN switch

Yes, H2+ with 6 x 2.5 GbE ports and H2 with 2 x 1 GbE and 4 x 2.5 GbE ports But not for the N2 and N2+ which top with only one 2.5 GbE port via USB adapter.

Is this adapter finish in design? I want to implement it to my 3d print rack design

Skickat från min SM-G973F via Tapatalk

[rooted]

New year's resolution: May all Hardkernel's new boards next year start with different letters in the alphabet than N or H!

+1

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using Tapatalk

[AreaScout]

Interesting ! Good idea, 4 x 2.5Gb LAN switch on N2/+ NAS

RG

You mean H2+, right?

Of course H2/H2+ !

RG

[anomeome]

Any plans on a minimal case targeting use as an edge device.

[odroid]

Any plans on a minimal case targeting use as an edge device.

There will be two more different cases which are slightly modified from Type-2 and Type-3 cases.

[Mullcom]

Any plans on a minimal case targeting use as an edge device.

There will be two more different cases which are slightly modified from Type-2 and Type-3 cases.

If you also sell this addon with different cable Lengths. The community have a chance add different idea how to attach addon in to the builds. For instance. Designing a separate box for this 4 ports that can be placed a bit Frome the H2 unit. Adding flexibility when chosing hardware for there network storage or router build. H2 hardware have a really good setup får category's like this.

Good work.

Skickat från min SM-G973F via Tapatalk

[odroid]

@Mullcom,
You can find a M.2 high speed signal extension cable(20cm/8inch length) in the market. But it seems to have a similar price range of the H2 Net card.
https://www.amazon.com/ASHATA-Extension ... B07RWNBSJR

[mad_ady]

Knowing Mullcom, he'll just solder some carefully measured wires together and make his own cable

[rob6118]

Here we go.


You can see the H2 Net Card from 1min 13sec.
It has four 2.5GbE ports with a M.2 PCIe edge connection.

It will be available 2 weeks later with a $45 price tag hopefully.

Super excited to see this! Any updated ETA on when it will be available for sale? You can expect my order as soon as it is as I was just looking to setup a home pfsense firewall / snort box. I want to filter both internal & external traffic, DMZ an exposed server and an internal NAS, without eating into bandwidth of the network.

I have a GS110EMX on the way https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... naged.html

And was originally planning on using the 2.5 Gbe Realtek NICs for the NAS DMZ, 2 x 1Gbe USB adapters for the WAN connect and external DMZ, and a NIC like this for the LAN:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3284558 ... MpbUL&mp=1 + https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000928 ... MpbUL&mp=1.

This add on card would be a much cleaner setup and I don't mind dropping the LAN trunk from 10 to 2.5.

[keil]

The H2 Net Card will be available two weeks later.
Some benchmark results will be shown a few days later. Let's see how it works.

[domih]

@Mullcom,
You can find a M.2 high speed signal extension cable(20cm/8inch length) in the market. But it seems to have a similar price range of the H2 Net card.
https://www.amazon.com/ASHATA-Extension ... B07RWNBSJR

Yes, you better get one from eBay starting at $13 (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=M. ... =0&_sop=15)

[keil]

The H2 Net Card will be available two weeks later.
Some benchmark results will be shown a few days later. Let's see how it works.

Here is a (work-in-progress) WiKi page for the H2 Net Card.
https://wiki.odroid.com/accessory/conne ... 2_net_card

[rooted]

280MB/s over SMB would be awesome, I do wonder if NFS would be any faster since it has less overhead.

It seems not since in testing you were getting around the same 2.3 Gb/s or 287 MB/s over SMB which looks to be the maximum of the connection.

Very nice testing and results, thank you.

[keil]

The H2 Net Card is available now.
https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/h2-net-card/

Compatible case shells are ready together.
https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2-case-type-5/
https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2-case-type-6/
https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2-case-type-7/

I hope Ameridroid and other distributors will start selling it soon.

[keil]

I hope some europe distributors will start selling it soon
-
I contacted Antratek Electronics (germany) via email, and asked if they plan selling it.

Update

- https://www.antratek.de/h2-net-card

I ordered it ( 2- 3 weeks delivery time )

[Ameridroid]

We are placing our initial order for the H2 Net Card and the new H2 cases types 5, 6 and 7 right now. Thanks for the notice!

[roarking]

Congrats, the H2 Net Card is a great product!

You are releasing two BIOS versions now:

https://wiki.odroid.com/accessory/conne ... d#esf_bios

Starting with version 1.22 of the H2/H2+ ESF BIOS, we provide and will provide two versions:

First one with the M.2 slot configured as 1 non-bifurcated x4 lane (for SSD or 3r party PCIe cards)
Second one with the M.2 slot configured as 4 bifurcated x1 lanes for the H2 Net Card.

Instead, could you add a menu option in BIOS to select the PCIe bifurcation mode and in addition to the modes x4 and x1x1x1x1 add a x2x2 mode?

Here is an example/screenshot from another motherboard/BIOS:

[odroid]

@roarking,
Thank you for the suggestion.
But, due to the limited Gemini-Lake BIOS space and features, we couldn't add the lanes configuration menu unfortunately.

BTW, which PCIe devices do you want to connect to your H2 with x2x2 configuration?

[roarking]

A configuration menu seem easier to manage than releasing two BIOS versions. Easier for the user too, because no BIOS change is need when adding the H2 net card.

due to the limited Gemini-Lake BIOS space and features

Do the BIOS generation tools prevent the addition of a bifurcation menu? The Gemini Lake hardware does support these modes.

x2x2 may allow the use of two NVMe SSDs in RAID1 mode, something that I would like to add to my current H2 setup. I am aware that there is currently no M.2 bifurcation adapter.

[roarking]

The design of the H2 net card triggers another idea: A card in similar form factor that converts the H2/H2+ M.2 slot to two or three mini-PCIe slots. This would turn the H2/H2+ into a powerful upgrade for the widely used PCEngines APU boards which are suffering from the ageing AMD Embedded G series GX-412TC CPU:

https://www.pcengines.ch/apu2.htm

[odroid]

I meant the BIOS flash memory space.
I think a M.2 NGFF sized stack-able NVMe adapter will be an interesting item for the RAID users. Open your own thread if you need a further discussion.

Let's focus on the affordable 2.5GbE switch on this thread.