There are fewer and fewer USB ports on the rear panel of new servers, and there are no serial ports at all. However, UPS, precision air conditioners, switch debugging ports and old acquisition equipment in the computer room still rely on these two types of interfaces. Only when the expansion plan is chosen correctly can the management link be smooth.

Which scenarios cannot avoid serial port and USB

  • The environmental monitoring of UPS and precision air conditioners mostly uses RS232 or RS485 interfaces;
  • The Console debugging port of the switch and firewall is a serial port and cannot be replaced during emergency troubleshooting;
  • Old-fashioned barcode guns, tape drives, dongles and other peripherals still use USB;
  • KVM and the local maintenance terminal require a stable USB boot disk channel.

Serial card selection depends on the number of ports and electrical standards

Common RS232 debugging and management scenarios,PCI-E to 4 serial port cardIt is enough; when the points are concentrated and one host has multiple devices, it can be usedPCI-E to 8 serial port card;Industrial bus environment should be selectedPCI-E to 4-port RS485/422 serial port card, pay attention to distinguish the wiring methods of 485 half-duplex and 422 full-duplex. After the serial port card is installed, it is mapped to a COM port in the system, and the operation and maintenance software can be directly called according to the port number.

Power extraction and cable length constraints of USB extension

It is generally recommended that USB 3.0 passive cables be controlled within 5 meters. For longer distances, use a powered active cable or an industrial-grade extension solution. When high-power peripherals are connected to a powered Hub, do not rely on the power supply margin of the motherboard's native port. Hub cascading generally does not exceed two levels, otherwise it will be difficult to locate abnormalities. When choosing a USB expansion card, pay attention to the driver adaptation list of the control chip and operating system. If the server system version is older, verify it in advance.

EB-LINK has a complete product line of serial and parallel ports and expansion cards. For batch transformation of computer rooms, please call 0755-83179002 for technical support to assist in card allocation according to the point list.