Ethernet Port Aggregation

[Yatys 93]

So to go with my planned server build, I am getting a smart switch.

 

My plan is to pair the 2 ports on the ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS in the server, as well as the 2 ports on the X99 sabertooth I will be putting in my 4K build, which should give me a 2 gigabit between the 2 PC's right? transfer speed wise at least.

[skimmilk5]

You'll have to tinker around in your switch configuration, but yes, you'd get 2Gb.

[TheKDub]

So to go with my planned server build, I am getting a smart switch.

 

My plan is to pair the 2 ports on the ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS in the server, as well as the 2 ports on the X99 sabertooth I will be putting in my 4K build, which should give me a 2 gigabit between the 2 PC's right? transfer speed wise at least.

 

Yep, if you have a switch between the two, then you'll need one that supports link aggregation, but if they're connected directly, then you'll have a 2Gb/s connection between the two. (Assuming that you set up link aggregation correctly)

[Yatys 93]

Yep, if you have a switch between the two, then you'll need one that supports link aggregation, but if they're connected directly, then you'll have a 2Gb/s connection between the two. (Assuming that you set up link aggregation correctly)

This is the switch I am getting http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CUG8ESM/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1O07UI3BDTGZB&coliid=I2J6C711EWAHE1&psc=1

 

once I get it I will look into the user guide which I hope will break it down for me

[TheKDub]

This is the switch I am getting http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CUG8ESM/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1O07UI3BDTGZB&coliid=I2J6C711EWAHE1&psc=1

 

once I get it I will look into the user guide which I hope will break it down for me

 

Alright, looks like it'll work.

 

Perhaps you should buy me one too :3 jk lol

[Yatys 93]

Alright, looks like it'll work.

 

Perhaps you should buy me one too :3 jk lol

personally think I might be going over board with the actual server, but I am planning on doing a few things with it. Obviously storage, my brother wants a personal minecraft server for him and his friends, for mods and such, my airsoft team has talked about getting a website if we get a few more people join us, so I might host it, as it won't be a high traffic site, and I might use the xeons to render the airsoft footage too, although not sure on that last 1, as that would impact performance on all the other things.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/qck9Mp

[TheKDub]

personally think I might be going over board with the actual server, but I am planning on doing a few things with it. Obviously storage, my brother wants a personal minecraft server for him and his friends, for mods and such, my airsoft team has talked about getting a website if we get a few more people join us, so I might host it, as it won't be a high traffic site, and I might use the xeons to render the airsoft footage too, although not sure on that last 1, as that would impact performance on all the other things.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/qck9Mp

 

Probably is a bit excessive, though having a 2Gb/s connection between your PC and the server will be nice for transferring files and such.

 

Minecraft servers are highly single thread performance dependent, so a CPU (or CPUs) with high single threaded performance would be best for that.

As for a website and rendering videos, I'm sure those are more multi-threaded, though you probably won't need dual 6-core xeons for it.

The current CPUs in there should be fine though.

 

That's a hell of a lot of storage, 36TB of HDD + 480GB of SSD, must be a lot of pr8n you're gonna put on there. jk

[leadeater]

So to go with my planned server build, I am getting a smart switch.

 

My plan is to pair the 2 ports on the ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS in the server, as well as the 2 ports on the X99 sabertooth I will be putting in my 4K build, which should give me a 2 gigabit between the 2 PC's right? transfer speed wise at least.

 

Personally what I did was add a Intel X540-T1 to my server and desktop and directly connected them. The server also has 4x 1Gb/s connections in 2 teams for management traffic (vMotion etc) and the other for data connectivity to the rest of my network.

 

Have a read of the following link, skip to the bottom 3 posts for the important bits. If you have any issues this could be why.

 

https://communities.intel.com/thread/77934?tstart=0

[Yatys 93]

Probably is a bit excessive, though having a 2Gb/s connection between your PC and the server will be nice for transferring files and such.

 

Minecraft servers are highly single thread performance dependent, so a CPU (or CPUs) with high single threaded performance would be best for that.

As for a website and rendering videos, I'm sure those are more multi-threaded, though you probably won't need dual 6-core xeons for it.

The current CPUs in there should be fine though.

 

That's a hell of a lot of storage, 36TB of HDD + 480GB of SSD, must be a lot of pr8n you're gonna put on there. jk

The SSDs are going in raid 1 so I have a small safety net, hopefully won't need it but it doesn't hurt, and I'll be using raid 6 for the drives, so it's more like 24TB lol

[Wombo]

So to go with my planned server build, I am getting a smart switch.

 

My plan is to pair the 2 ports on the ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS in the server, as well as the 2 ports on the X99 sabertooth I will be putting in my 4K build, which should give me a 2 gigabit between the 2 PC's right? transfer speed wise at least.

It seems there is a bit of confusion here about what link aggregation actual does when it comes to Ethernet. If you have a switch that supports LACP and NICs that support LACP you can combine the ports into a single, higher bandwidth, connection. However this does not mean any one connection can use more than the total bandwidth of a single physical connection in the bundle. For example, if you combine two 1Gbps NICs into a bundle you will have a bundle with a theoretical maximum of 2Gbps. With that any one connection will only use a maximum of 1Gbps, leaving the other 1Gbps for other connections. Both LACP and PAgP work this way.

[braneopbru]

So to go with my planned server build, I am getting a smart switch.

 

My plan is to pair the 2 ports on the ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS in the server, as well as the 2 ports on the X99 sabertooth I will be putting in my 4K build, which should give me a 2 gigabit between the 2 PC's right? transfer speed wise at least.

No, the answer is NO and everyone here saying yes have no idea what they are talking about. You do not get a single 2Gbps link, you get two 1Gbps links. 

 

If you want a fast connection between your desktop and your server, move up to 10Gb networking. You can usually find Mellanox Connect-X 2 cards on ebay for under $20; and in another $20 each card for transceivers and depending on the distance, you could get enough fiber optic cable for $20. So that's $100 for a point to point 10Gbps link and you don't have to spend extra to buy a managed.

[leadeater]

@Wombo @braneopbru It is possible, you can do it using HP's networking teaming software and using Adaptive load balancing mode. I think the dynamic mode in Server 2012 R2 teaming is something similar. But yea I was going to post the same reply as you both but couldn't be bothered

 

Never assume network teaming will give point to point connections increased network bandwidth, not what it was designed for.

[Yatys 93]

I don't think I will be going 10gb for now, as its not just 2 PC's there are a few, and the 10gb switches are still really expensive, it was just more of a since I am getting the switch anyway as I want to add a couple ports for the server so the PC's can get better performance at once, and since the sabertooth had the 2 ports I was curious if there was a point in giving that a pair too.

[braneopbru]

You can get a Mikrotik switch with 24 Gigabit ports and two 10 Gigabit ports for $250 US brand new. Connect your main PC and your server via 10Gb and everything else connects with gigabit.

 

Your main PC will get insane transfer speeds to the server and your PCs that are connected via gigabit will easily saturate their links; You could have 10 separate computers all saturating a gigabit link to the server.

 

A couple of months ago I would have never even considered 10Gb, but when I actually started looking at prices I realized it's actually something that's fairly affordable, especially if you don't mind going on eBay for some stuff.

[Wombo]

@Wombo @braneopbru It is possible, you can do it using HP's networking teaming software and using Adaptive load balancing mode. I think the dynamic mode in Server 2012 R2 teaming is something similar. But yea I was going to post the same reply as you both but couldn't be bothered

 

Never assume network teaming will give point to point connections increased network bandwidth, not what it was designed for.

True, but that isn't layer 2 bonding or aggregation, those are layer 5-7 protocols, I can't remember exactly. They don't require anything from your networking equipment but both OS's at the ends must support the application or service.

[Yatys 93]

would you be able to link me to the switch? I will have to find a UK supplier too

[braneopbru]

would you be able to link me to the switch? I will have to find a UK supplier too

 

 

http://linitx.com/category/mikrotik-cloud-router-switch/1074

 

That's the product page for the lineup of Mikrotik Switches from one retailer.

 

I have the 226-24g-2s+-RM. The IN version is the same unit but in a desktop case. It's got more features than I can wrap my head around. All that matters to me is that from my desktop to my FreeNAS server I get sustained transfer speeds of over 700 MB/s without any sort of optimization. I only have four drives in the FreeNas server at the moment, so I think that may be whay I can't get above 700. That's using a simple SMB share.

 

I'm using Tranceivers that I bought from Fiberstore (FS.com) for £10.24 each and 25 Meters of Fiber optic cable that was £7.21 to connect my desktop to the switch and a 2 meter Twinax DAC that costs £11.52 to connect the serve to the switch. A DAC is a just a copper cable that has a permanently transceiver at either end. cheaper than optical transceivers and patch cables for distances of up to a couple of meters.

 

 

http://www.mikrotik.com/buy/europe/unitedkingdom

 

Those are all the authorized UK suppliers. You might want to see if any one them can offer better pricing or even price match the other ones.

[Yatys 93]

http://linitx.com/category/mikrotik-cloud-router-switch/1074

 

That's the product page for the lineup of Mikrotik Switches from one retailer.

 

I have the 226-24g-2s+-RM. The IN version is the same unit but in a desktop case. It's got more features than I can wrap my head around. All that matters to me is that from my desktop to my FreeNAS server I get sustained transfer speeds of over 700 MB/s without any sort of optimization. I only have four drives in the FreeNas server at the moment, so I think that may be whay I can't get above 700. That's using a simple SMB share.

 

I'm using Tranceivers that I bought from Fiberstore (FS.com) for £10.24 each and 25 Meters of Fiber optic cable that was £7.21 to connect my desktop to the switch and a 2 meter Twinax DAC that costs £11.52 to connect the serve to the switch. A DAC is a just a copper cable that has a permanently transceiver at either end. cheaper than optical transceivers and patch cables for distances of up to a couple of meters.

 

 

http://www.mikrotik.com/buy/europe/unitedkingdom

 

Those are all the authorized UK suppliers. You might want to see if any one them can offer better pricing or even price match the other ones.

 

these are more than double the price of the switch I planned on getting I think while having 10gb would be awesome, not sure I would see the benefit of it as I am using mechanical drives in raid 6, so the write speeds aren't going to be great, I found a forum with a formula in there, can't remember the formula but I got roughly 150mb/s with the 6 drives, so think I will just stick with the original plan, It was mainly for backup speeds anyway

[leadeater]

True, but that isn't layer 2 bonding or aggregation, those are layer 5-7 protocols, I can't remember exactly. They don't require anything from your networking equipment but both OS's at the ends must support the application or service.

 

Yea both endpoints must support it and there can be issues when a link fails due to the ARP's being messed with.

 

Adaptive load balancing (balance-alb)

 

Includes balance-tlb plus receive load balancing (rlb) for IPV4 traffic, and does not require any special network switch support. The receive load balancing is achieved by ARP negotiation. The bonding driver intercepts the ARP Replies sent by the local system on their way out and overwrites the source hardware address with the unique hardware address of one of the NIC slaves in the single logical bonded interface such that different network-peers use different MAC addresses for their network packet traffic.