i210t1 vs EXPI9301CTBLK (gigabit ethernet)

[Hank Barta]

Hi folks,
I have a modest home built NAS based on a Celeron J1800 and a couple 3TB drives in RAID1. It runs Linux and shares files via NFS over my home LAN. (Most clients are Linux as well.)

It's dropped off the LAN a couple times this last week and the only way I could get it back on was to reboot. '/etc/init.d/network restart' did not do the job. I guess what I should really be asking is what is causing this. The motherboard has a Realtek Ethernet chip and I wonder if I might be better off with something that has an Intel chip. Looking at Newegg and Amazon I see these two likely candidates:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106176
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106033
One is about twice as expensive as the other. What would drive me to go against my inherent thriftiness (some would say cheap! ) and buy the more expensive one? I'm not serving a lot of clients so the ability to do so would be of little benefit to me.

And FWIW, my motherboard has one PCI Express X1 slot so there is not room for anything fancy but I'm open to suggestions. It has a mini PCI Express slot as well but I think selections are pretty limited (and none that I found claim to use Intel chips.)

Thanks!

PS: I have a switch which the server connects to. I power cycled that and it has not dropped off the LAN in several days. Could that have contributed to the problem? It's a Rosewill RC-409LX

 

[sfx2000]

The motherboard has a Realtek Ethernet chip and I wonder if I might be better off with something that has an Intel chip

Sounds like an issue I experienced some time back with an Intel Atom 330 board with a Realtek ethernet GIGe - the chip itself runs off the end of the pier and crashes.. I ended up disabling the on-board ethernet and using an Intel Pro1000 PCI NIC in it's place...

 

[Hank Barta]

Sounds like an issue I experienced some time back with an Intel Atom 330 board with a Realtek ethernet GIGe - the chip itself runs off the end of the pier and crashes.. I ended up disabling the on-board ethernet and using an Intel Pro1000 PCI NIC in it's place...

I have that same card, I think. I used it on an older board when the built in Ethernet crapped out. Unfortunately this board has no PCI slots.

I guess I'll go with the less expensive card. The other card is described as a "server card" and while my rig is technically a server, it is only serving a couple of clients. It seems unlikely I would benefit from a "server card."

Thanks!

 

[sfx2000]

The EXPI9301CTBLK is likely good enough...