Hey All,

I just finished upgrading from 1Gbe to 10Gbe SFT+. There's a lot of ambiguous and iffy info online about support and compatibility of NICs, DACs, and switches, so I wanted to share my setup for reference for anyone else that is looking for a surefire compatibility setup.

OS: Unraid 7.0.1

Network Cards Tested Successfully

Dell Intel X710-DA2 and Dell Intel XXV710-DA2, both cards worked with all three cables listed below. Both cards were easy to upgrade via Dell Firmware .exe on Windows 11. I unlocked the X710-DA2, and left the XXV710-DA2 locked. I doubt I even needed to unlock the X710.

"Unlock" means allowing a network card to accept non-intel-encoded cables, since SFP+ can be picky with cables.

Both cards were purchased used for $39-$49 USD on eBay.

DACs Tested Successfully with both X710 and XXV710

#1 Amazon iPolex (Full product name "ipolex Colored 10G SFP+ Twinax Cable, Direct Attach Copper(DAC) Passive Cable in Green, 0.5m (1.64ft), for Cisco SFP-H10GB-CU0.5M, Meraki, Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, Intel, Fortinet, Netgear, D-Link"

#2 Amazon 10Gtek 25G SFP28 (Full product name "10Gtek 25G SFP28 SFP+ DAC Cable – 25GBASE-CR SFP28 to SFP28 Passive Direct Attach Copper Twinax Cable for Intel XXVAOCBL1M, 1-Meter(3.3ft)", select the Intel version)

AOC Cables Tested Successfully with X710 and XXV710

#1 Aliexpress 10G AOC OM2 20M (Full product name "10G SFP+ to SFP+AOC OM2 3M/5M/7M LSZH 10GBASE Active Optical SFP Cable(AOC) for Cisco,MikroTik,Ubiquiti…Etc Switch Fiber Optic", by Store "XICOM Store")

Everything ran in Unraid, without any extra drivers or settings, or tweaks of any kind. It was just plug and play. The SFP+ switch was the Mikrotik CRS310-8G+2S+IN and the SFP28 cable ran fine at SFP+ speed.

I did a very detailed write-up on my blog, along with speed tests, how to upgrade firmware, and how to unlock the NICs.

Full Blog Post

Hope this helps! Lmk if you have any questions.