QLE8262L-DELL Dell 10GB Dual Ports PCI-E 2.0 X8 CNA Adapter.

Dell QLE8262L-DELL 10GB Dual Ports PCI-E 2.0 X8 CNA Adapter Overview

The Dell QLE8262L-DELL 10GB Dual Ports PCI-E 2.0 X8 Converged Network Adapter is a reliable solution designed for PowerEdge blade servers, delivering high-speed connectivity and efficient data management. Built with robust engineering, this adapter enhances network flexibility while ensuring excellent performance in demanding enterprise environments.

Key Features of the Dell QLE8262L-DELL CNA Adapter

• Dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet capability for fast and reliable data transfer
• PCI-E 2.0 x8 interface supporting superior throughput and compatibility
• Optimized for Dell PowerEdge blade server infrastructure
• Reduces latency and boosts application response time
• Supports converged networking to simplify deployment

Technical Specifications

Main Information

• Manufacturer: Dell
• Part Number / SKU: QLE8262L-DELL
• Product Category: Converged Network Adapter
• Sub-Type: 10 Gigabit Ethernet

Interface Details

• Form Factor: PCI Express 2.0 x8
• Connector Type: Dual-port SFP+
• Supported Protocols: Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
• Bandwidth: 10GbE per port

Dell QLE8262L-DELL 10GB Dual Ports PCI-E 2.0 x8 CNA Adapter: product family overview

The Dell QLE8262L-DELL 10GB Dual Ports PCI-E 2.0 x8 Converged Network Adapter (CNA) represents a high-performance, enterprise-grade network interface designed specifically for PowerEdge blade and rack servers. Engineered for demanding data center environments, this adapter consolidates LAN and SAN traffic onto a single 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabric, delivering increased throughput, reduced cabling complexity, and improved resource utilization. Built on proven Broadcom/Emulex silicon with Dell-specific firmware optimizations, the QLE8262L-DELL is purpose-built to support virtualization, storage offloads, and low-latency application workloads commonly found in modern enterprise stacks.

Technical profile and form factor details

The QLE8262L-DELL is a PCI Express 2.0 x8 form factor adapter that fits standard server expansion slots, offering dual 10GbE optical or copper SFP+ ports depending on the specific SKU. The dual-port configuration allows link redundancy, multipath I/O, and aggregated throughput for bandwidth-hungry workloads. The adapter’s on-board hardware engine supports a wide range of offload functions, reducing CPU cycles consumed by networking and storage protocols. With firmware tailored for Dell PowerEdge platforms, this adapter assures compatibility with server management tools and enables features such as remote firmware updates and diagnostic telemetry through your server management stack.

Performance characteristics and throughput optimizations

Performance is a core consideration for selecting a QLE8262L-DELL. The dual 10Gb ports allow aggregate throughput up to 20 Gbps bi-directionally when both ports are used, though real-world throughput depends on switch configuration and traffic patterns. The adapter supports advanced features such as TCP/IP checksum offload, Large Send Offload (LSO), Large Receive Offload (LRO), and segmentation offload. These offloads transfer processing from the host CPU to the adapter, which lowers processor utilization and allows applications to scale more efficiently under heavy network loads.

For storage traffic, hardware acceleration for FCoE, iSCSI, and RDMA-capable transports such as RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) may be supported either natively or through vendor-supplied drivers. When properly configured, storage offloads significantly reduce I/O latency and free CPU cycles for higher-layer application processing, making CNAs well-suited for database servers, virtualization hypervisors, and high-performance compute nodes.

Compatibility with Dell PowerEdge ecosystems and blade servers

The QLE8262L-DELL is validated for use with a broad range of Dell PowerEdge servers, including blade systems that require compatible mezzanine or adapter slot footprints. Dell validation means the adapter integrates with the server’s lifecycle controller, iDRAC remote management, and firmware update mechanisms. This integration simplifies deployments at scale because administrators can push firmware and driver updates through centralized management tools. Blade server deployments benefit from the QLE8262L-DELL’s compact design and dual-port redundancy, enabling high-availability network topologies within dense chassis environments.

Virtualization and multi-tenant readiness

Virtualized data centers require network adapters that can be partitioned, accelerated, and tuned for multiple guest VMs sharing physical network resources. The Dell QLE8262L-DELL supports virtualization features such as Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) and virtual NIC partitioning, allowing the physical adapter to present multiple virtual functions to the hypervisor. SR-IOV provides near-native I/O performance by enabling direct assignment of virtual functions to guest VMs. For VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM environments, vendor drivers and integration packages improve visibility and manageability.

In multi-tenant or cloud environments, Quality of Service (QoS) and traffic segregation become important. The adapter’s support for VLAN tagging, priority flow control, and traffic shaping assists administrators in isolating traffic classes—such as management, VM east-west, and storage—and enforcing predictable performance characteristics across tenants.

Storage protocol support and enterprise SAN integration

A defining capability of CNAs is their ability to carry storage protocols over Ethernet. The QLE8262L-DELL commonly supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet, providing a way to extend existing Fibre Channel storage paradigms without requiring additional HBAs or separate Fibre Channel fabrics. When used with converged switches and appropriate FCoE infrastructure, the adapter presents virtual HBAs to servers and storage arrays, enabling SAN connectivity using the familiar LUN and zoning models.

For environments that prefer iSCSI or rely on native Ethernet storage, hardware iSCSI offload accelerates session management, TCP connection handling, and data transfer. This is particularly beneficial for throughput-sensitive workloads such as virtualization datastores, media streaming, and transactional databases where deterministic I/O matters.

Redundancy, high availability, and multipathing

The dual-port design of the QLE8262L-DELL enables administrators to architect redundant network paths and multipath storage configurations. By connecting each port to different top-of-rack switches or switch fabrics, you can protect against single-switch failures and enable non-disruptive maintenance. For storage paths, multipathing software such as Device Mapper Multipath (Linux), Windows MPIO, or vendor multipath drivers provide automatic path failover and load balancing. High-availability infrastructures that host critical applications should leverage both physical and logical redundancy to meet stringent uptime requirements.

Power efficiency and thermal considerations

In dense blade and rack server deployments, power budget and cooling are important constraints. The QLE8262L-DELL is designed with power efficiency measures to minimize wattage relative to throughput. Still, when planning large-scale rollouts, account for the cumulative power draw and thermal output of multiple 10Gb adapters per chassis. Proper air-flow management, power provisioning, and rack-level environmental monitoring reduce the risk of thermal throttling or premature component failure. Dell’s server design and chassis cooling profiles are typically tuned to handle common adapter lineups, and review of per-chassis power and thermal documentation helps prevent overcommitment.