Customer Reviews

D-Link DGE-530T 10/100/1000 Gigabit Desktop Adapter

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First after reading most of the reviews I have to say that gigabit does not "speed up" your network. It will not allow you to transfer Access files faster, or to copy files faster (usually). You are almost ALWAYS limited to your hard drive speed, and the operating system.

Where we see a huge increase is in applications that talk back and forth to each other using sockets (database servers being a good example - NOT access which is a file share). We have apps internally that exceed 600 megabits / sec with these cards. We have the card installed under Server 2003, FreeBSD 5.x and 6.x, and Red Hat Linux.

Samba is not a benchmark tool, and is usually a huge bottleneck for most LAN's. If you want to test the network card use an ECHO server, or some other benchmark tool.

The big gain on this card is that it supports full duplex gigabit. Some of the other low end cards are non dma cards (all of the transfers happen from CPU, not hardware). This makes a huge difference in throughput. Some of our internal applications have seen a drop in CPU usage over the previous 100MB cards that were non DMA systems. The only exception is the Intel Etherexpress PRO Gig S card. It uses a hardware chip for SSL encryption as well and can save a lot of CPU for web servers that use SSL.

I'm having the same connectivity issues as the other two reviewers (Noah and Casey). We have two servers where I installed the cards, running Windows 2003 Standard Server with SP1 and all updates; the servers are connected to 3COM gigabit switch. The connection starts just fine, but it cuts off in about 2 to 4 min of medium file traffic, and the servers become inaccessible - not even responding to pings. The card needs to be reset to restore the connection - only to drop it again in the next 3 minutes. We tested the switch to ensure it's working, and we tested the cabling, as well, - everything seemed working fine. Finally, we gave up and installed more expensive Intel 82541PI Gigabit cards. No problems since then.

I got this card after my on-board Gigabit adapter failed. I looked around and this was the best choice for an inexpensive Gigabit network card with Linux support. I have purchased close to 10 of them for my home office network and am very satisfied. I've since put in two D-Link switches, a D-Link WAP, and a D-Link VPN router.

My usage is limited to mostly the transfer of a lot of small files, but there are some occasional largish files. By upgrading my network to 1000 Mb/s (NICs, switches, and even cat5e cable), I now average ~35 MB/s for disk-bound file copies, which for me is great compared to my 100 Mb/s rate of ~5 MB/s. (Edit: the 35 MB/s is over Samba, I can get speeds of ~50MB/s over HTTP.) I am *not* a network engineer or sys admin so it's quite possible that one could achieve better/faster/higher rates.

Also, this NIC comes with a "faceplate" for slim profile computers. It's fairly easy to swap with a small Phillips screwdriver.

Highly recommended!

Decent gigabit PCI nic. Supports up to 9K jumbo frames/packets, so you can use them in yer gigabit network if you so desire.

I've had no problems with it on any of the machines I've installed it in. Runs great on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

I got one of these cards so I can game at gigabit LAN parties and I've started upgrading my home network to gigabit. All three of my PCs at home have one of these cards in them and I found the install to be so much easier than I thought. Windows basically installed this automatically for me. Just shut down, power off, physically install card into PCI slot, boot PC back up and let windows search for driver and you point to the CD that came with the adapter and BAM! you are up and running with gigabit aon the next reboot.

I can now transfer files sooo much faster between my PCs. I share and save video files, games, CDs, MP3s, etc between all my PCs and this card and gigabit switch have greatly decreased the time it takes to transfer large files from one PC to the next. This is vital at a LAN party when everyone is trading files. The faster I can go the better.

Thanks D-Link!

Works on Windows 7 64-bit with 4GB RAM, but ONLY if you download and install D-Link's Feb 2011 (or more recent) drivers BEFORE you install the card. It is also a good idea to remove or disable any other NIC you may have on the same computer. Unless, of course, you need the other NIC. Since most machines now have a NIC on the motherboard, this involved disabling the NIC in BIOS. For example, with Phoenix BIOS, you would set "Onboard LAN Controller" to "Disabled".

These February 25, 2011 drivers from D-Link are the first to support Windows 7, so please take that into consideration before reading older reviews. Last night, when I was deciding what to buy, to replace my failing NIC on my Intel motherboard, reading the reviews of all the different affordable Gigabit NICs, I came away wondering if there was any that I should buy, i.e. - that would actually work on a 4GB 64-bit Windows 7 system.

For the record, my DGE-530T Hardware Version is listed as B2.

I recently bought two of these cards (DGE-530T) and the D-link 8-port Gigabit switch (DGS-2208) here at Amazon, and I must say that it works great.
I have been able to transfer files three times as fast as before.

If you've seen NICs (Network Interface Card) before, this is pretty much the standard for gigabit speed. I find D-Link to be one of the most reliable products around and so far, I haven't seen a single problem with the product, very reliable and I highly recommend.

Works fine on Windows XP, but does not work well with Linux. I've been using Linux for at least 10 years and compiling my own kernels for most of that time, and still had issues getting this card to run under Linux. My built in 10/100 NIC was much faster than this card would go. Ended up getting an Intel gigabit card that, of course, works with no issues. Save yourself some headaches and stay away from this card if it is destined for a Linux box.

All you need is an open PCI slot, $$, and 5 minutes to install and get gigabit speeds. Oh and a gigabit switch. :)

Gigabit speeds are especially useful for transferring large files. And now-a-days almost everything is a large file. Movies, videos, CD backups, DVD backups, ghost images, ISOs, large winzip fules, etc.. And when you want to transfer them over a network and not wait around forever, then gigabit is your answer.

No problems with this card and I recommend it to others.