Intel EXPI9402PT PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server Adapter 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express 2 x RJ45 - OEM

Pros: I use a lot of these in pfSense systems. Always great

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Supermicro X9DR7-LN4F mb
Athena Power RM-3UD365R808 3U Case
(2) Intel Xeon E5-2630 6 core
32 Gb Kingston DDR3 SDRAM 1600 ECC Registered
(2) Seagate Constellation SAS 500 GB 6 Gb hd (RAID1)
(2) Seagate Constellation SAS 2TB 6 Gb hd (RAID1)
(2) OCZ Vertex 3 240 GB SATA 3
(2) Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Server NIC (8 total)
ESXi 5.1 (running pfSense & 2 vm 2008 R2

Pros: Works perfectly with ESXi 4 and 5. Better throughput than any of the cheaper cards. Supports teaming.

Cons: Price, but you get what you pay for.

Pros: Works great, no problems, does what its told. ESX 4.1 works great with this card, NOT SURE about ESXi as I don't use that version.

Cons: I'd complain about price but it is fast and does well so I won't.

Pros: Works well with hyperV/vmware esxi. Superior to onboard consumer grade NICs!!

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Good nic - the price we pay for consumer grade onboard NICs.

Pros: + Seamlessly works in ESXi 4.0
+ Fast and Stable connections
+ Intel quality and peace of mind

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: We were using a couple of the Intel GT desktop PCI NiCs and had intermittent issues with ESXi 4.0. This card is flawless.

Plugged it into an existing installation of ESXi 4.0, booted up and the ports were available in vSphere. Can't ask for more.

Installed in a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H.

Pros: Stable and fast. Performs as expected.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I use this on a whitebox ESXi 4 server that I built. It just worked right out of the box and I have had no problems.

Pros: Great Workstation Card. Does everything I need it too.

Cons: Price seems a bit high, but it's not for home use.

Other Thoughts: All my workstations use this card while my server uses the 4port version. It's very awesome and I love the speed when gathering large files from the server.

Pros: This is an awesome server card. I'm running it on a server 2008 R2 DC/file server and I can download from it at a sustained 90MB/s and not notice any network slowdown (in the form of DNS requests) from other stations. Also, the CPU usage is minimal when transferring data at those speeds.

Cons: A little pricey, but it's A) Intel and B) has the word "server" in its title. If you want fast, use the MB's built in port(s). If you want screaming fast, get this.

Other Thoughts: I'm going to get another one for the other server I'm running. I haven't been able to enable teaming on the card yet, but I'm going to tackle that soon and maybe I'll report back after :)

Pros: Installed without a hitch. Works great in (Open)Solaris. Setup of LCAP was as simple as enabling it on the switch and then using dladm to create an aggregate link. I suspect the setup would be just as easy on other platforms. Transfered a little over a TB so far, not a single hiccup.

Cons: Little pricy for a dual interface NIC.

Other Thoughts: Does include a half-height mounting bracket for low profile cases.

Pros: The Intel driver allows you to setup NIC teaming (802.3ad). It even allows for teaming with other adaptors with reduced functionality, e.g. no jumbo frames and no receive side scaling.

I teamed it up with the Realtek 81xx that was on the motherboard in Dynamic Link Aggregation under windows 7.

Cons: A little pricy, but still the easiest way of getting more than 1Gbps network

Other Thoughts: Teaming may also be known as bonding or link aggregation (LACP).

Make sure your switch supports 802.3ad.