PC Peripherals Cheap NIC supported by Windows 2016 or VMWare vSphere 6

[tommy_vercetti]

Hi All,

Need some suggestions for a cheap NIC that is supported by either Windows 2016 or VMWare vSphere 6, priority is for Windows 2016

@vivek.krishnan, @cyberwarfare

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Any intel NIC is supported. We are using Realtek NICs for 2016 - they are not supported in ESXi

 

[tommy_vercetti]

I have 2 systems using Realtek® RTL8111H & Intel® I218V they both do not have drivers

 

[vivek.krishnan]

I have 2 systems using Realtek® RTL8111H & Intel® I218V they both do not have drivers

I am pretty sure both are supported, at least on Hyper V 2016. If its a driver issue - you can make a ISO with the drivers injected into the WIM using nlite.

If you want, I will give my spare 2 port NIC which I was keeping for pfsense at home.

EDIT - If you do not have the drivers, just download the package from the respective site and install using pnputil. Optionally, make a custom ISO with the drivers injected into the WIM. nlite should help with this - you need to search for integrating drivers into windows 10.