Chelsio High Performance, Quad Port 10GbE Unified Wire Adapter

Elevate your data center networking with Chelsio’s T540-LP-CR, a high‑performance quad port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Unified Wire adapter purpose‑built for dense server deployments. Engineered around the fifth‑generation T5 technology and housed in a compact low‑profile PCIe 3.0 form factor, this adapter delivers exceptional throughput, advanced offloads, and versatile connectivity for today’s storage, cloud, HPC, and virtualization workloads. Designed to reduce CPU overhead, lower latency, and simplify network and storage convergence, the T540-LP-CR is an ideal choice for administrators seeking reliable performance in blade servers, rack servers, and virtualized environments. With four 10GbE copper interfaces, administrators can scale bandwidth, optimize VM migration, accelerate data movement, and consolidate I/O paths without sacrificing reliability or manageability.

• Quad 10GbE connectivity with copper RJ-45 interfaces provides flexible, cost‑effective 10G connections across servers, storage arrays, and virtualized hosts, enabling high‑density networking in compact chassis.
• Unified Wire Architecture (UWA) delivers hardware offloads for TCP/IP, iSCSI, FCoE, and iWARP RDMA, dramatically reducing CPU load while increasing sustained throughput and lowering latency for storage and data‑center workloads.
• Optimized for storage, cloud computing, HPC, and virtualization, the T540-LP-CR accelerates data movement, virtual machine traffic, and network‑bound applications, helping to shorten backup windows and improve application responsiveness.
• Low‑profile PCIe 3.0 x4 host interface enables broad compatibility with a wide range of dense servers, blades, and hyper‑converged systems, preserving PCIe lanes for other accelerators and devices.
• Comprehensive driver and software support across major operating systems with ongoing firmware updates, plus management tools that simplify deployment, monitoring, and firmware provisioning in large fleets.

Technical Details of Chelsio High Performance Quad Port 10GbE Unified Wire Adapter

• Form factor: Low profile PCIe 3.0 adapter for compact server environments
• Ports: 4 × 10GbE copper RJ-45 (10GBASE-T)
• Aggregate potential: Up to 40 Gbps total bandwidth across all ports
• Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x4
• Technology: Fifth generation T5 Unified Wire Architecture (UWA)
• Offloads: TCP/IP offload, iSCSI offload, FCoE offload, iWARP RDMA, VXLAN/NVGRE offloads, VMQ, SR-IOV support
• RAM/firmware: On‑board firmware with update capability to enhance performance and feature set
• Management: Driver support for major Windows and Linux distributions; compatible with standard management and monitoring workflows

How to install Chelsio High Performance Quad Port 10GbE Unified Wire Adapter

• Power down the server and disconnect the power cables. Open the chassis or server cover to access PCIe slots.
• Identify an available PCIe 3.0 x4 (or larger) slot that fits a low profile card. Remove any slot covers as needed.
• Carefully insert the Chelsio T540-LP-CR into the chosen PCIe slot, applying even pressure until the card is seated securely.
• Reconnect power, replace the server cover, and boot the system. During POST, the system may auto-detect the new hardware.
• Install the appropriate Chelsio drivers from the vendor’s website or your operating system’s package manager. Verify that all four ports are recognized.
• Configure bonding, NIC teaming, or virtualization offloads as required for your environment. Install any management utilities to monitor performance and firmware status.

Frequently asked questions

• What is Unified Wire?

  Unified Wire is Chelsio’s converged network architecture that offloads multiple data plane functions—such as TCP/IP, iSCSI, FCoE, and RDMA—onto hardware, reducing CPU overhead and accelerating data movement across LAN and storage fabrics.

• How many ports does this adapter have and what speeds do they support?

  The card provides four 10GbE ports, each capable of 10 Gbps copper Ethernet (10GBASE-T), offering up to 40 Gbps total aggregate bandwidth when used together.

• Which operating systems are supported?

  Chelsio hardware typically supports major versions of Windows and Linux with vendor-provided drivers and firmware updates. For virtualization platforms, check compatibility with VMware, Hyper-V, and other environments.

• Can I use this adapter in a virtualized environment?

  Yes. The T540-LP-CR supports virtualization features like VMQ and SR-IOV, enabling efficient virtual machine networking while maintaining performance and isolation.

• What kind of storage offloads does it provide?

  Offloads include iSCSI and FCoE, which help accelerate storage traffic over the network and reduce CPU usage for storage I/O operations.