IO CREST 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet M.2 M+B Key Interface Card 10/100/1000/25000 Mbps RJ45 LAN Intel I225 Chipset,Black,SY-PEX24075

I've got a 1L Dell PC that I use as a pfSense box on my home network, but it has only one on-board NIC. I needed some extra ports for Internet and a failover connection.I removed the m.2 SSD in favor of a regular SATA one so I could free up that slot for this m.2 card.This card works perfectly fine and contrary to the prevailing advice regarding Realtek NICs on pfSense/FreeBSD, these work well. I had tons of issues with USB-based NICs, but these are using the PCIe bus and don't seem to have any issues.

I'd easily give this five stars - it works right out of the box, the mounting screw hole has plenty of clearance, and the cables to the ethernet jack are a good length. However, it's missing ONE important thing: The keying of the two cables going to the ethernet port aren't clearly labeled on the circuit board. It's not like there isn't room next to the connectors so that pin one can be easily identified. There's plenty of room for that. The orientation of the cables differs between the circuit board and the ethernet jack.Mark pin 1 correctly on both connectors, and this'd be worth five stars.

I have a home server with an X470 chipset running multiple VMs. The board has a few PCI slots, but 3 m.2 slots. I recently needed to add a few more ethernet ports to the server and all the slots were filled so this seemed like a good option to try.I've got about 30 years experience with servers and desktops, with probably a few hundred builds under my belt... and after a few days I gave up on getting this to work.First problem: it is old... base architecture is 17 years old, and this particular variant is about 8 years old. Drivers are difficult to find (other than the provided disc or IO Crests web site)... and the latest drivers provided by IO Crest are from 2012 (Windows 8 and Windows 7 are the latest OS's in the list... but good news: there are DOS drivers available in the distribution! woot!)But... I didn't get that far: The card simply grabs all the PCIE lines that it sees, and with bifurcation support, it keeps pulling all the PCIE lines disabling anything else that may be on there so all sorts of other devices on the mobo malfunction before getting to the OS to install the old drivers. I tried moving slots, and a few other things... but finally gave up after a few hours and dropped in a USB ethernet dongle for now to get past this.Finally, to cement the 1 star rating in place, there are no jumper-socket-keys or markers on the orientation of the 3 plugs on the board and backplane... Good news here is that you'll have 64 guesses on how to plug things in... or you can just mimck the way they're plugged in in the listing photo and hope it works.... but I didn't get that far to validate the photo... it just doesn't work.Anyways... pass on this.

This was exactly what I needed with 1 potentially big issue (Ill mention in cons). I needed a dual port Gigabit NIC that fit into a half length mini PCIe slot on a ASRock Z87E-ITX. I use this machine as a server with Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. The onboard Intel I217V is technically not compatible with Win Server but editing the inf makes it possible to install. This meant that I never update the driver as it would be a pain. It worked fine but I got a new router ( ASUS RT-AC88U Wireless-AC3100 Dual Band Gigabit Router, AiProtection with Trend Micro for Complete Network Security ) that supported teaming 2x Gigabit NICs for 2Gbps. I wanted to get a GBe NIC that supported Win Server 2012 R2, could be teamed, and supported other tech like jumbo frames.While I could have gotten a NIC that was standard PCIe (upto x16) I wanted to avoid this if I could because space is limited in my server. I was not using the min PCIe slot as it usually has a Wifi/bluetooth card and I didnt need that for the server. I was not having much luck finding dual port mini PCIe cards that I thought could support teaming. I came across an Intel I350T2V2 variant somewhere online but not from reputable sites and didnt want to take the chance. Then I stumbled on this at Amazon. I figured for $30 it was worth a shot and I could likely return it if I had problems.I am sure happy I tried it as it has exceeded my expectations.Pros:-Well packaged, seems well made physically-Cables are long enough but not too long (may be a problem in larger ATX or larger but in ITX or even an mATX build I think its reasonable)-Ports are spaced out well from each other.-Show as 2 distinct NIC's in Device manager-Win Server 2012 R2 installed drivers automatically (from 2013 for me)-Realtek website had installer from very recent in 2016 for drivers, as a bonus it didnt install other junk.-Supports 9k jumbo frames, WOL, etc.Cons:-NOT, I repeat NOT a Half sized mini PCIe card. This is full sized according to my understanding of the terminology/spec. Half size is ~26/27mm long and full is ~51mm. I didnt measure it exactly but my wifi card I removed is exactly 26mm and this was about 2x as long. It just barely fit and did not line up with the screw whole of the half height. It seems snug enough and I dont move my server ever so I am not worried about it.Other thoughts:Well worth it. Was getting 112MB/s xfer from desktop to server for a large files. I am now getting 118MB/s using this card (9k jumbo frames enabled). I also have the peice of mind that my server could output ~2Gbps to multiple devices at the same time. So far very happy I found this.

the diagram for the triangle is incorrect on the mini-pciex card, for the large header. took me a while to figure it out. for the high cost of this product, you would expect better

When it comes to M.2 accessories, compatibility isn't always just about the key. If you don't specifically confirm that this is supported by your PC, you are gambling. It doesn't work in the 2015 NUC I tried it with, but I knew the risks. Hanging on to it in the hopes it may be useful later.

Experienced the NIC occasionally losing link which Intel has acknowledged is a problem with i225 NIC cards containing older firmware (it's supposedly fixed as of 1.93). Try two different ways of contacting IO Crest to obtain current firmware without success.

This card works in linux, however I did have an issue with the drivers working properly in debian. Ubuntu worked great with the system, in particular ubuntu server 20.04.

The board design is poor and you may as well forget there is documentation included because it's useless. The pinouts don't match both the port end and the M.2 and the board is unlabeled aside from marking pin1. Use the yellow wire in the pictures to determine how to plug in the cables. Aside from the poor documentation and non-standard pin configuration, the card works as you would expect.Tested on a Intel NUC 12 Pro Mini PC NUC12WSHi7 in the M.2 Sata 22x42 (key B) slot in both Proxmox & Windows 10/11. I had to disable all PCIe sleep functions (PCIe ASPM Support + Native ACPI OS PCIe Support) for the device to show up in the OS. This card does NOT fit this NUC without modification (unlikely to fit any NUC, not that it was advertised as such). You have to remove the pins/plugs and solder the wires directly, as well as cut out the copper heatsink over the M.2 Sata slot to have clearance to re-assemble for this particular device.

Funciona correctamente, Excelente para computadoras con este tipo de puertos y se quiera adicionar una tarjeta con dos puertos mas.

On the 4 pin block, you want the yellow pin 1 to pin 1.On the 10 pin block, you want black 1 to black 1.Just copy the image and you'll be fine.I have this up and running now for me, in opnsense at the moment.