Linux networking options for LACP

[skimmilk5]

I'd like to bond some ports over LACP. I have a two-port NIC, and each port operates at 1GbE - they're HPE NICs, and I believe (don't quote me on this, though) that they use an Intel chipset. Both ports go to a HP ProCurve switch. I'd like to use LACP to bond these two ports together, but I don't know what setting would be best to use in unraid. Currently, the ports are set active-backup (1), which gives me a maximum of 1Gb. I've already bonded the ports on the switch side by trunking them together and setting the bonding mode to LACP. I'm not sure whether I should use balance-rr, 802.3ad, balance-tlb, or balance-alb.

I've been suspecting that I should use 802.3ad, since I'm working with a switch with LACP, but can someone explain if my thinking is flawed?

[Lurick]

You'll need 802.3ad but unless you have SMBv3 on both sides enabled you'll still never see over 1Gb transfers for single source/destination streams.

[Windows7ge]

Link Aggregation/LACP is an aggregation protocol for enabling MULTIPLE CLIENTS to share an aggregated network link. This is good in-between a server and a switch with clients connected to the switch.

 

Unless you plan on somehow running multiple simultaneous transfers LACP will not give you 2Gbit. What you want is SMB3.0 Multi-channel. SAMBA has a switch you can enable to allow multi-channel support. It does work but it's easier to use between two Windows clients.

[skimmilk5]

Thanks so much, everyone! I know that no single client will be able to saturate the gigabit link, but multiple 1GbE clients could.