Mellanox NVIDIA CX4421A ConnectX-4 Lx Dual Port SFP28 25GbE OCP Mezzanine 2.0 Network Interface Card (NIC) Adapter MCX4421A-ACAN

⚠️ IMPORTANT COMPATIBILITY NOTICE

This is NOT a standard PCIe network card.

The MCX4421A-ACAN uses the OCP Mezzanine 2.0 (Type 1) form factor and will NOT physically install into standard PCIe x8 or x16 slots found in typical Dell PowerEdge, HPE ProLiant, Lenovo ThinkSystem, workstation, or desktop motherboards. It requires a server specifically equipped with an OCP 2.0 Mezzanine slot. [store.flag...iptech.com]

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Product Overview

The Mellanox NVIDIA ConnectX-4 Lx MCX4421A-ACAN is an enterprise-class dual-port 25GbE OCP network adapter designed for hyperscale cloud computing, virtualization, software-defined storage, NVMe-over-Fabrics, OpenStack, Kubernetes, and high-density data center deployments.

Powered by the proven Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx EN (MT27710) controller, the adapter delivers ultra-low latency networking, RDMA acceleration, hardware virtualization offloads, advanced encapsulation processing, and high-performance Ethernet connectivity through two SFP28 interfaces.

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Part Number Cross Reference

Mellanox / NVIDIA

• MCX4421A-ACAN
• CX4421A
• ConnectX-4 Lx EN
• MT27710
• NVIDIA SKU: 900-9X414-0053-SN1

Related Platform Designations

• OCP Mezzanine 2.0
• OCP Type 1
• Open Compute Project NIC
• Dual Port 25GbE OCP Adapter

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Technical Specifications

General

• Manufacturer: NVIDIA Mellanox
• Model: MCX4421A-ACAN
• Board Model: CX4421A
• Controller: Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx EN
• ASIC: MT27710
• Device Type: Network Interface Card (NIC)
• Protocol: Ethernet Only

Form Factor

• OCP Mezzanine 2.0
• Type 1 Stacking Height
• Bracketless Design
• Horizontal Mezzanine Connector

Host Interface

• PCI Express 3.0 x8
• Backward Compatible with PCIe Gen2

Network Ports

• 2 × SFP28 Ports

Supported Speeds

• 1GbE
• 10GbE
• 25GbE

Physical Dimensions

• 68.0 mm × 110.05 mm
• 2.67 in × 4.33 in

Power Consumption

• Typical: 9.01W
• Maximum (Passive): 10.83W
• Maximum (Optics Installed): 13.83W

Cooling Requirements

• 200 LFM Minimum Airflow

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Advanced Networking Features

RDMA Acceleration

• RoCE v1
• RoCE v2
• RDMA over Converged Ethernet
• Ultra-Low Latency Networking

Virtualization

• SR-IOV
• Up to 127 Virtual Functions per Port
• Virtual Machine Acceleration
• Multi-Tenant Cloud Optimization

Overlay Offloads

• VXLAN
• NVGRE
• GENEVE

Storage Acceleration

• Erasure Coding Offload
• RS-FEC Forward Error Correction
• NVMe-over-Fabrics Networking
• Distributed Storage Acceleration

Hardware Offloads

• TCP Checksum Offload
• UDP Checksum Offload
• IPv4 Processing
• IPv6 Processing
• Large Send Offload (LSO)
• Large Receive Offload (LRO)

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Complete Manufacturer Compatibility List

Supermicro

BigTwin Series

• SYS-2029BT-HNR
• SYS-2029BT-HNC0R
• SYS-2029BT-HTR
• SYS-2029BT-DNC0R

TwinPro Series

• SYS-2029TP-HC0R
• SYS-2029TP-HTR
• SYS-6029TP-HC0R
• SYS-6029TP-HC1R

FatTwin Platforms

• SYS-F619P2-RTN
• SYS-F619P3-RC0
• SYS-F619P5-RTN
• SYS-F629P3-RTBN

MicroCloud Platforms

• SYS-5039MS-H12TRF
• SYS-5039MS-H8TRF
• SYS-5038ML-H8TRF

Additional Supermicro Platforms

• SYS-6019U-TN4R4T
• BigTwin OCP Platforms
• TwinPro OCP Platforms
• MicroCloud OCP Systems

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HPE (Cloudline & Hyperscale)

Cloudline

• CL2100 Gen10
• CL2200 Gen10
• CL2800 Gen10
• CL3150 Gen10

Apollo

• Apollo 2000
• Apollo XL170r Gen9
• Apollo XL190r Gen9
• Apollo 4500
• Apollo XL450 Gen9

Associated HPE Part Numbers

• 868089-001
• 872467-001

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Open Compute Project (OCP)

Meta/Facebook Platforms

• Yosemite
• Leopard
• Wynn

Open Rack Systems

• Open Rack v2
• OCP 2.0 Server Sleds
• OCP Storage Nodes
• OCP Compute Trays

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Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT)

QuantaGrid

• D51B-2U
• D51BP-1U

Additional Platforms

• Quanta Open Rack V2 Systems
• QuantaPlex Multi-Node Servers

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Wiwynn

Hyperscale Platforms

• SV300
• SV500
• SV700

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White-Box OCP Systems

Compatible with numerous:

• OCP 2.0 Compute Sleds
• OCP 2.0 Storage Nodes
• Cloud Datacenter Appliances
• OpenStack Infrastructure Nodes
• Kubernetes Worker Nodes
• NVMe-oF Storage Servers

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Incompatible Systems

NOT Compatible With

The following platforms typically use traditional PCIe adapters and are not compatible with MCX4421A-ACAN:

Dell PowerEdge

• R630
• R640
• R650
• R730
• R740
• R750
• R760

HPE ProLiant

• DL360
• DL380
• DL560
• DL580

Lenovo ThinkSystem

• SR530
• SR550
• SR630
• SR650

Cisco UCS

• C220
• C240

Standard Desktop Motherboards

• ASUS
• MSI
• Gigabyte
• ASRock
• Supermicro PCIe-only boards

These systems require traditional PCIe network adapters instead of OCP Mezzanine cards.

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Operating System Compatibility

VMware

• ESXi 6.5
• ESXi 6.7
• ESXi 7.x
• ESXi 8.x

Microsoft

• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Linux

• Ubuntu Server
• Debian
• CentOS
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
• Rocky Linux
• AlmaLinux

Virtualization Platforms

• Proxmox VE
• Hyper-V
• Citrix Hypervisor
• XenServer
• Linux KVM
• OpenStack
• Kubernetes

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Transceiver & Cable Compatibility

SFP28 Optical Modules

• 25GBASE-SR
• 25GBASE-LR
• Generic SFP28
• Mellanox SFP28
• Cisco Compatible SFP28
• Dell Compatible SFP28
• FS.com SFP28
• Finisar SFP28

10GbE Support

• SFP+ SR
• SFP+ LR
• 10G DAC Cables

Direct Attach Copper

• Passive SFP28 DAC
• Active SFP28 DAC
• Up to 5 Meter Twinax Cabling

Active Optical Cable Support

• SFP28 AOC Assemblies

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Ideal Applications

• Hyperscale Data Centers
• Cloud Computing
• OpenStack Infrastructure
• Kubernetes Clusters
• Ceph Storage
• NVMe-over-Fabrics
• Distributed Storage Networks
• Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
• AI Clusters
• Machine Learning Platforms
• Big Data Analytics
• HPC Environments
• 25GbE Storage Fabrics
• Open Compute Deployments