Nic Teaming! beat a dead horse please!

[fmydog]

OK so there is tons of info on this but none pertain to my exact situation. Here goes nothing thanks in advance!

I have a small but powerful home network and want to make the best of it I will list my devices to help diagnosis.

Router: Engenius ESR-9850
NAS: Qnap ts509 pro
Switch: DGS2208 8 port unmanaged switch,
TrendNet 5 port TEG-S50g
PC: Intel PRO/1000PT Dual port PCIe 1x 1Gb Nic

So I have my Qnap dual Ethernet ports set to trunking 802.3ad and plugged in to the d link switch both ports. And my PC is plugged into the TrendNet switch both ports. Now my questions.

Do I need managed smart switches to double my bandwith to 2Gbs both ways? Or can I use the unmanaged switches. I need the fastest possible setup from my PC to my Qnap. Thank you so much in advance.

 

[GregN]

OK so there is tons of info on this but none pertain to my exact situation. Here goes nothing thanks in advance!

I have a small but powerful home network and want to make the best of it I will list my devices to help diagnosis.

...

So I have my Qnap dual Ethernet ports set to trunking 802.3ad and plugged in to the d link switch both ports. And my PC is plugged into the TrendNet switch both ports. Now my questions.

Do I need managed smart switches to double my bandwith to 2Gbs both ways? Or can I use the unmanaged switches. I need the fastest possible setup from my PC to my Qnap. Thank you so much in advance.

You need a switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad. And you need to be able to configure the switch, telling it what ports are aggregated. This means you need a intelligent/smart/managed switch which has a UI.

You will also have to configure your NIC(s) for aggregation/pairing/teaming, and configure the QNap for the same.

You will not double your bandwidth (2n), any single session is still limited to the speed n, where n is the native speed of one of the matching pair of NICs that you've aggregated.

 

[fmydog]

You need a switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad. And you need to be able to configure the switch, telling it what ports are aggregated. This means you need a intelligent/smart/managed switch which has a UI.

You will also have to configure your NIC(s) for aggregation/pairing/teaming, and configure the QNap for the same.

You will not double your bandwidth (2n), any single session is still limited to the speed n, where n is the native speed of one of the matching pair of NICs that you've aggregated.

Question? ?? The two topics from this site are misleading in a sense. I was looking at the throughput of a test from the review in link 2 I am posting and under the circumstances in the test environment using dynamic link aggregation he gets 160+ MBs of throughput which is beyond a single gig nic speed.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...-to-part-3-bandwidth-control?showall=&start=1


http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/31616-synology-ds2411-reviewed?start=1

Near the bottom of the page he gets 195 read.... I must be seeing things. I ordered (2) net gear GS108T switches about an hour ago due to the high performance this website gets from them. Please correct me if it is in fact still not possible.

 

[GregN]

I was looking at the throughput of a test from the review in link 2 I am posting and under the circumstances in the test environment using dynamic link aggregation he gets 160+ MBs of throughput which is beyond a single gig nic speed.

That is a combined speed of multiple sessions. No one single connection can get beyond the speed of one of the NICS, the advantage of aggregation is that multiple sessions are not limited to the speed of one NIC, they are spread across NICs. A higher aggregate speed.

Take a look at the LACP page on Wikipedia, that probably will help.

TCP/IP creates a virtual circuit between you and the entity you are talking to, imagine a TFTP session, or a SSH login, you are assigned a NIC by LACP when the circuit is created, for the duration of that circuit you can't exceed the speed of the NIC that handles that circuit - packets are not split between NICs. Now in the case of multi-threaded FTP where there are multple sessions, each thread creates a circuit to the destination, which can be assigned to different NICs - so the overall total bandwidth is spread across both NICs, so in that case you can exceed the speed of one NIC.

What this means in the real application world, when streaming HD video, you will not get faster than what one NIC will support for that video, but if you are moving a file at the same time as you are watching your movie, the HD video most likely won't suffer, because the move will most likely get assigned to the other NIC. Think of each session ( your file move is one session, your HD stream another ) as a rope through a doorway, the more doors (NICs) you have the more ropes you can string, but each rope goes through only one door.

Does that help?

I ordered (2) Netgear GS108T switches about an hour ago due to the high performance this website gets from them. Please correct me if it is in fact still not possible.

That will accomplish what you are looking for, with bells on. Why two? If it isn't too late, you might want to look on EBay, I picked up a used Dell 24-port managed switch for like $75.

 

[fmydog]

That is a combined speed of multiple sessions. No one single connection can get beyond the speed of one of the NICS, the advantage of aggregation is that multiple sessions are not limited to the speed of one NIC, they are spread across NICs. A higher aggregate speed.

Take a look at the LACP page on Wikipedia, that probably will help.

TCP/IP creates a virtual circuit between you and the entity you are talking to, imagine a TFTP session, or a SSH login, you are assigned a NIC by LACP when the circuit is created, for that circuit you can't exceed the speed of the NIC that holds open that circuit - packets are not split between NICs. Now in the case of multi-threaded FTP, each thread can create a circuit to the destination, which can be assigned to different NICs - so the overall total bandwidth is spread across both NICs, so multi-threaded FTP can exceed the speed of one NIC.

What this means in the real application world, when streaming HD video, you will not get faster than what one NIC will support for that video, but if you are moving a file at the same time as you are watching your movie, the HD video most likely won't suffer, because the move will most likely get assigned to the other NIC. Think of each session ( your file move is one session, your HD stream another ) as a rope through a doorway, the more doors (NICs) you have the more ropes you can string, but each rope goes through only one door.

Does that help?



That will accomplish what you are looking for, with bells on. Why two? If it isn't too late, you might want to look on EBay, I picked up a used Dell 24-port managed switch for like $75.

Yes indeed it does. I am thankful for all the help. I will definitely be reporting back if I obtain speeds greater then 150MBs. I am over at SmallNetBuilder beeping told it is quite the task to accomplish. Thanks once again for your time.