Upgrading ReadyNAS 516 to 10GBe Ethernet

[powellandy1]

Hi

Having upgraded previously to the Xenon processor of the 716 I thought I would have a dabble at adding 10GBe ethernet via a card.

So - given there isn't a riser I had to purchase one of these - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07GYT58NV

I then purcahsed a Intel X520-T2 card from ebay (as I believe this is the exact same one used in the 716).

With a little careful manipulation it fits.... and works!!
But is incredibly noisy - that tiny fan is really loud (as often they are!)
So I took a punt and purchased a X540-T2 card (passively cooled - but I think the 516 has reasonable airflow) and swapped it out.

And again.. it works (I suspected the Intel drivers in ReadyOS would cover it).

NB - I haven't yet got a 10GBe switch so I can't actually use it at 10GBe but proof of concept it is recongised and usable.

Hope this is helpful

Cheers

Andy

[powellandy1]

I can only seem to attach one picture (and they appear as an attachment on the left hand side) - so the picture in the post above shows the ReadyNAS web interface. This picture shows how it actually fits (obviously once you attach it to the backplate it stands straight).

[bpaulson]

Super old thread I know, but in case anyone wanted to upgrade to a 10gbps nic in their Readynas 516 it can be done just as the OP stated. I purchased an X540-T2 card off of eBay for $17.99. Then I purchased a riser cable off of Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PFJ9FZN?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

A pci-e 8x male to 8x female riser card.

I then took the unit apart and carefully kind of wedged the cable and the card in there (it's snug and held in with a screw at least.)

Booted the unit back up and hooked it up to my 10gbps switch and boom. I had also previously upgraded the CPU and ram (16GB's of ECC ram and an Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1265L V2 @ 2.50GHz)

I'm sure there's other differences between the 516 and the 716 but what the rest are I have no idea. I'm not sure if I'm going to sell the unit or what I'm going to do with it as I don't have any use for that much storage (6 x 8TB drives.) I purchased the unit used back in 2017 to back up client's macbooks when I did phone/computer repair. I got out of that and really don't have any need to store data at the moment unless I decide to start a youtube channel or something lol.

[Sandshark]

Any genuine Intel or Supermicro NIC in that family (X520-X540, 1 or 2 port) will work, at least with OS6.  Other brands with that family of chips may, but I've not tried them.  Other chip sets will not work.  I do not know about with OS 4.2.x, but expect they should since some rack-mount units had them.

I think it would have been a little easier with about another 5cm of cable, as I also used a 20cm one like you did.  Since my switch has SFP+ ports, I used an X520, which has no fan.  There are X540 (RJ-45) versions without a fan.