Link Aggregation Windows 10 Pro With Mixed NICs

[LAwLz]

As the title suggests, I have two Ethernet ports on my motherboard and would like to aggregate them. The problem is that one is an Intel NIC, and the other is a Killer Ethernet NIC.

I am running Windows 10 Pro and the New-NetLbfoTeam command does not work.

 

Anyone got any tips or am I out of luck unless I change OS? Surely someone must have made a program that can combine multiple NICs even if neither the official drivers nor Windows supports it.

 

To be more specific, the motherboard I am using is a Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5.

[zMeul]

I tried Windows' own SMB Multichannel with a Intel and a RealTek .... didn't work, gave up

[done12many2]

I tried with 2 Intel NICs built-in to my motherboard and couldn't get it to work.  Link aggregation from my Synology NAS to my router worked easily and perfectly, but from my Windows PC to the Synology NAS was impossible.

[brwainer]

The teaming feature, including the " New-NetLbfoTeam " powershell commandlet, is supposed to be a feature for the Server SKUs only. Certain builds (e.g. 10240, which was the first retail build IIRC) had this enabled by accident, and so there are tutorials out there about how to use it. But there has been official statements about it, like:
 

Quote

There are no native LBFO capabilities on Win10. Microsoft does not support client SKU network teaming.

It was a defect in Windows 10 build 10240 that “New-NetLbfoTeam” wasn’t completely blocked on client SKUs. This was an unintentional bug, not a change in the SKU matrix. All our documentation continued to say that NIC Teaming is exclusively a feature for Server SKUs.

While the powershell cmdlet didn’t outright fail on client, LBFO was in a broken and unsupported state, since the client SKU does not ship the mslbfoprovider.sys kernel driver. That kernel driver contains all the load balancing and failover logic, as well as the LACP state machine. Without that driver, you might get the appearance of a team, but it wouldn’t really do actual teaming logic. We never tested NIC Teaming in a configuration where this kernel driver was missing.

In the 10586 update (“Fall update”) that was released a few months later, “New-NetLbfoTeam” was correctly blocked again.

In the 14393 update (“Anniversary update”), we continued blocking it, but improved the error message.

The bottom line is that customers should NOT attempt to create teams on client SKU. It is NOT supported on client SKU, and never has been. Classic NIC Teaming continues to be supported in Windows Server 2016.

(Edit) NIC Teaming however can be done using 3rd party software, just the native LBFO teaming available from Microsoft is not supported on client SKUs.

Adam Rudell | Windows Networking Beta | Microsoft Corporation

https://blog.voina.org/windows-10-nic-teaming/

 

That official statement mentions there being 3rd party software that can do teaming - by this I believe he means Intel, Realtek, etc. drivers that have it built in - but that requires that the NICs you use all be of the same or similar type. I have never seen a way to team/bond/aggregate heterogeneous NIC brands.

[done12many2]

5 minutes ago, brwainer said:

The teaming feature, including the " New-NetLbfoTeam " powershell commandlet, is supposed to be a feature for the Server SKUs only. Certain builds (e.g. 10240, which was the first retail build IIRC) had this enabled by accident, and so there are tutorials out there about how to use it. But there has been official statements about it, like:
 

https://blog.voina.org/windows-10-nic-teaming/

 

That official statement mentions there being 3rd party software that can do teaming - by this I believe he means Intel, Realtek, etc. drivers that have it built in - but that requires that the NICs you use all be of the same or similar type. I have never seen a way to team/bond/aggregate heterogeneous NIC brands.

 

Well that would explain it then.  I spent a long time trying to get it to work.  I wish I would have seen something like this previously.  Oh well.  Thank you. 

[brwainer]

1 hour ago, done12many2 said:

 

Well that would explain it then.  I spent a long time trying to get it to work.  I wish I would have seen something like this previously.  Oh well.  Thank you. 

Well in your case, since you said you have two intel NICs, they should be able to be teamed together through the intel drivers - but you have to install Intel's full drivers manually, what comes out of the box and through Windows Update is just the bare minimum. To avoid hijacking this thread further, please make a new post including what mother board you have, and if you are using any addon NIC cards, the model of those. Then I or others can verify if those NICs can work together, and help you find the right driver to install.

[LAwLz]

17 hours ago, brwainer said:

The teaming feature, including the " New-NetLbfoTeam " powershell commandlet, is supposed to be a feature for the Server SKUs only. Certain builds (e.g. 10240, which was the first retail build IIRC) had this enabled by accident, and so there are tutorials out there about how to use it. But there has been official statements about it, like:
 

https://blog.voina.org/windows-10-nic-teaming/

 

That official statement mentions there being 3rd party software that can do teaming - by this I believe he means Intel, Realtek, etc. drivers that have it built in - but that requires that the NICs you use all be of the same or similar type. I have never seen a way to team/bond/aggregate heterogeneous NIC brands.

Do you know if it is possible to lift the driver from the server SKU to the Pro version and make it work that way?

It seems quite moronic for Microsoft to lock such a basic feature (IMO) out from even the Pro version of Windows.

[brwainer]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Do you know if it is possible to lift the driver from the server SKU to the Pro version and make it work that way?

It seems quite moronic for Microsoft to lock such a basic feature (IMO) out from even the Pro version of Windows.

I haven't found anyone who has tried it, but I also haven't gone looking very hard at that. 

[tt2468]

12 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Do you know if it is possible to lift the driver from the server SKU to the Pro version and make it work that way?

It seems quite moronic for Microsoft to lock such a basic feature (IMO) out from even the Pro version of Windows.

No, it is not. I'm not sure even intel driver LACP works. 

 

On 4/4/2017 at 6:26 AM, zMeul said:

I tried Windows' own SMB Multichannel with a Intel and a RealTek .... didn't work, gave up

I have gotten multichannel working just fine on realtek and intel combos. It's just really ghetto.

[netts]

The only benefit of link-aggregation would be fail over for anyone not having multiple computers connecting to a single server at one time.

[kasugatei]

I had the same issue when I had to design a system where I could not use Windows Server on server hardware and had to use Windows 10, but I can not tell the reasons because of the NDA.

 

Long story short, Microsoft removed support for NIC teaming in Windows 10 and if you need teaming, you need to rely on the NIC manufacturer for it. Recently, 1 month ago or so, Intel has released teaming support for their drivers so you should be fine if both cards have Intel chips. If I am not mistaken, Realtek has teaming supported in their drivers as well. However, you will be unable to team 2 NICs with different chip manufacturer. When using Windows server, it is fine to mix NICs.

[leadeater]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:16 AM, LAwLz said:

I am running Windows 10 Pro and the New-NetLbfoTeam command does not work.

That is correct, NIC teaming in Windows 10 just isn't supported. Even though you can see the powershell cmdlets they only work on the server editions.

 

There are also no 3rd party NIC teaming solutions for Windows 10 either, your only option is SMB3 Multi-Channel and that only works for file transfers.

 

Edit:

As @Niksa said Intel has just release updates drivers with teaming support in WIndows 10

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25016/Intel-Network-Adapter-Driver-for-Windows-10

 

Quote

Note: Intel ANS is only supported on the Windows 10 Anniversary Update* (Windows 10 Version 1607, build 10.0.14393) branch, and may not be supported on future versions.

 

[spotnyk]

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