Small Tree intros new PCI Express GbE cards
updated 12:55 pm EST, Wed January 3, 2007
Small Tree PCIe GbE cards
Small Tree Communications has introduced three new PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet cards for Apple's Power Mac G5 and Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro workstations, as well as the new Intel-based Apple Xserve systems. The four-port copper PEG4 card, six-port copper PEG6 card, and six-port copper or optical PEG6SFP card (shown at right) offer the highest port density and extract the maximum network throughput from modern high-end server motherboards, according to Small Tree. The cards are designed for file servers that require a high bandwidth connection to a Gigabit Ethernet switch using features such as Jumbo frames and 802.3ad link aggregation. The company's multi-port PCIe GbE solutions enable near wire-speed performance with low CPU utilization, and all three cards come with native driver support for all popular operating systems including Mac OS X. The new cards are available for $670 (PEG4), $810 (PEG6), and $1,000 (4PEG6SFP).
The PEG4 adapter includes four independent copper 10/100/1000Base-T GbE channels in a single PCIe slot, while the PEG6 includes six such channels. The PEG6SFP GbE adapter includes six independent Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) channels that users can customize to simultaneously meet optical and copper networking requirements. Card owners can specify which sockets should be dedicated for optical or copper use, and users have the option of populating only those sockets necessary for current needs.
