Hi all , I hope i am posting this in the right place,
If not please don't scold me ,
I'm am wanting to make a PC router out of an old HP compaq DC7900 SFF which i got for free , now I've been looking at 1Gigabit network cards and thats where I've come to a standstill, I was hoping maybe a dual or quad port?
Any helpful information or advice will be much appreciated.
35 watts idle power consumption, not really an acceptable figure for an always-on device these days (under 15 watts are easily achievable with well selected modern hardware, my baytrail-d 'server' chugs 6 watts from the wall) - especially considering the relatively slow conroe celeron 440. That easily costs more on the powerbill in ~18 months, than a new power-optimized/ faster system would.
Dual- and quad port NICs exist, both using Intel or Realtek chips - neither are particular cheap though (a (smart-)managed switch might quickly be a better option).
If you don't mind the power consumption slh just mentioned, you can get a used low profile quad port ATLS1QGE gigabit NIC (Sun's kmod-niu based) on ebay for $12 on ebay.com or 13€ on ebay.de.
Or a DELL TMGR6 Broadcom ( kmod-tg3 ) for a couple $ / € extra.
Just make sure they're compatible with your device (PCIe slot, length and height).