Network Subsystem Selection

You should not be frugal with the NIC, as a high quality NIC is important for an optimized DTN host. NIC features to look for include:

• support for interrupt coalescing 
• support for MSI-X
• TCP Offload Engine (TOE)
• support for HW Receive GRO (starting with 6.11+ kernel)

Note that many NICs provide dual port models, but that does not mean if you use both ports at the same time you get double the performance. Often the second port is meant to be used as a backup port.

Recommended 100G+ options include NVIDIA/Mellanox  ConnectX-7 (400G/100G), as well as the Intel E810 and the Broadcom P2100G/P2200G.