Friday, April 24, 2020

Using USB ethernets in this project

I know every system and network purist is going to say "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!".  Even I was asking myself that question.   It started as just an easy simple way to attach the storage server to the management network.  Then the coronavirus shows up and most retail and not a few online suppliers close.  So I'm faced with an architecture that requires 2 NICs per node and 3 machines with 1 builtin NIC each.  I consider trying to move everything to a single connection use VLAN tags, but it complicates the configuration a good bit and doesn't really mimic how it would be done in the real world.    I dig through my parts bin and come up with a handful of USB/ethernet NICs.   So, I think, why not give it a try, you don't have anything else to use.  As it turns out, so far they have held up to the demand just fine.    I ran a number of tests on them and they have performed flawlessly.  Now the fact that they will never be asked to go beyond 100Mb/s may have a lot to do with that.  However, this is just a simple test lab for learning and isn't going to be running an enterprise client VM load, it appears I have found a way to keep plugging forward with building this demo.  As a note, all of the USB ethernet adapters I have coincidentally wound up being ASIX chipsets.

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