Small Tree ships GbE PCIe cards
updated 10:05 am EDT, Mon October 23, 2006
Small Tree PCIe GbE cards
Small Tree Communications today began shipping its PEG4, PEG6, and PEG6SFP PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) cards for Apple's G5 Power Mac, Mac Pro, and Intel-based Xserve systems. Small Tree boasts that all three cards offer the highest port density and extract the maximum network throughput from new high-end server motherboards. The cares are ideally suited for file servers that require high bandwidth connection to a Gigabit Ethernet switch using features such as Jumbo frames and 802.3ad link aggregation. The four-port copper PEG4 card, the six-port copper PEG6 card and the six-port copper or optical PEG6SFP card are available for $700, $810, and $1,000, respectively. Based on current Intel Gigabit Ethernet controllers, the PEG4, PEG6, and PEG6SFP come with native driver support for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.
The PEG4 adapter includes four independent copper 10/100/1000Base-T Gigabit Ethernet channels in a single PCIe slot, while the PEG6 includes six such channels. The PEG6SFP Gigabit Ethernet adapter is designed to provide greater flexibility with six independent Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) channels that are customizable to simultaneously meet optical and copper networking requirements. Users can specify which sockets should be dedicated for optical or copper use, and have the option of populating only those sockets necessary for current needs, leaving open the opportunity of tailoring remaining ports for future specifications.
