1. Adapters Comparison Table

Below you can find a comparison table with all network adapters natively supported by PF_RING.

This table helps you understanding what features they provide and what performance you can expect when using a given NIC with PF_RING. ntop does not endorse any manufacturer, so this page is designed to help the reader to select the best NIC for its needs.

  Fiberblaze Intel NVIDIA Napatech
Status Supported Supported Supported Supported
Max Port Speed (Gbit) 100 100 100 100
On-board Memory (1) Yes No No Yes
Hardware Filtering Yes
Yes Yes
Hardware Port Merge Yes No No Yes
Hardware Timestamps Yes
Yes Yes
Pcap Chunk Mode Support (2) Yes No No Yes
Optimized for nProbe Yes Yes
Yes
nProbe Cento 100Gbit Yes No Yes Yes
n2disk 1 x 10Gbit Line Rate Yes Yes Yes Yes
n2disk 2 x 10Gbit Line Rate Yes No
Yes
n2disk 100Gbit Line Rate Yes No No Yes

Note:

  1. On-board memory helps mitigating traffic spikes/bursts and reduces the probability of packet loss during capture.
  2. Pcap chunk mode allows the NIC to deliver many packets in one block to the application, instead of packet-by-packet. Thanks to chunk mode, the application (in particular n2disk) can significantly reduce the CPU load when dumping packets to disk. Please note that in case of index creation while dumping packets, n2disk still needs to iterate packets; even in this case chunk mode can help as it is usually more efficient than packet mode.
  3. This needs to be tested or it is not applicable due to feature limitation.
  4. Supported on some adapters
Intel Adapters Compatibility
  e1000e igb ixgbe i40e ice
Link Speed 1 Gbit 1 Gbit 1/10 Gbit 10/40 Gbit 10/25/50/100 Gbit
Supported Cards Intel 8254x/8256x/ 8257x/8258x Intel 82575/82576/ 82580/I350 Intel 82599/X520/ X540/X550 Intel X710/XL710 Intel E810
Operating System Linux (kernel 2.6.32 or better) Linux (kernel 2.6.32 or better) Linux (kernel 2.6.32 or better) Linux (kernel 2.6.32 or better) Linux (kernel 2.6.32 or better)
Traffic Reception
Traffic Injection
Hw packet filtering     Intel 82599 only    
Hw timestamping (nsec)   Intel 82580/I350 only