Dual Ethernet Setup

[larrytan]

I have a switch connecting my desktop and NAS. My internet speed is 1Gbps. Yes 1Gbps, I can download stuff from Google Drive at about 70-90MB/s.  Here is the things, I am bottleneck by the single Ethernet port on my motherboard while downloading torrent and copying file to and from the NAS. I am wondering if I have a NIC card with 2 1Gbps port, will the NIC card or something be smart enough to use 1 port for download torrent and the other to copy file from the NAS or there might be a chance both the traffic will be squeeze into 1 port.

[Oshino Shinobu]

If you have a managed switch, you can setup LACP on the switch and it will handle incoming traffic and balance it across the two ports. Combine it with OS NIC teaming and any outbound traffic will balance itself, giving you 2Gbps of bandwidth. 

 

If you have an unmanaged switch, you should be able to use NIC teaming for switch independent load balancing. Any incoming traffic that wasn't initiated by your PC may not balance properly though. 

[Blue4130]

Alternatively, 10gbe nics are pretty affordable now. 

[Windows7ge]

What type of NAS do you have?

 

I'd go the 10Gbit NIC route if you have a switch that supports it.

 

Do note if you go the LACP route that it's not a true aggregator. No single transfer will see over 1Gbit. You'd want SMB3.0 Multi-channel for that.

[larrytan]

Thanks guy for the quick response. @Windows7ge  I am just using a normal Synology 2 bays NAS running a single 1Gbps. After some read up about LACP, it seems that I can have 2 transfers at 1Gbit each but not 1 transfer at 2Gbits (Not a must but why not ). Giving that I am using and only have a unmanaged switch. This boil down to cost and effort of buying a managed switch with LACP and do some configuration or buying a 10Gbits NIC and switch.  

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, larrytan said:

Thanks guy for the quick response. @Windows7ge  I am just using a normal Synology 2 bays NAS running a single 1Gbps. After some read up about LACP, it seems that I can have 2 transfers at 1Gbit each but not 1 transfer at 2Gbits (Not a must but why not ). Giving that I am using and only have a unmanaged switch. This boil down to cost and effort of buying a managed switch with LACP and do some configuration or buying a 10Gbits NIC and switch.  

Why not both?  If you're open to the used market 1Gbit managed switches are very cheap. Some will come with a couple SFP+ ports (10Gbit) so if you're up for configuring LACP via CLI it's a cheap option. If it doesn't work out there's 10Gbit ports.

[jasonvp]

1 hour ago, larrytan said:

After some read up about LACP, it seems that I can have 2 transfers at 1Gbit each but not 1 transfer at 2Gbits

Bear in mind that in the best case scenario, you'll get the switch to hash the PC<-->NAS over one of the PC's GigE links, and the PC<-->Intardwebz over the other GigE link.  There's no guarantee that the switch will actually hash that way though, and you could be left with one of the GigE links in the bundle getting no traffic while the other is full.

 

802.3ad bundles are best used with a many-to-one.  Those scenarios provide the switch far more to hash over and it's more likely you'll get an even distro across the links.

 

Single 10GigE is the better solution.  Mikrotic 5 x 10GigE switches are stupid-cheap, you'll just need to add some SFPs.

 

 

 

[larrytan]

After must consideration, I am going to start small with MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN which I could get it at about $125. Current I kinda struggle with the SFP+ transceiver. I notice there are RJ45, Multimode/Single Mode fiber, DAC. In general, the RJ45 seems to be most expensive out of the 3. Another consideration is the NIC, I am more towards getting SFP+ NIC since I am already going to get some SFP transceiver. 

[Blue4130]

33 minutes ago, larrytan said:

After must consideration, I am going to start small with MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN which I could get it at about $125. Current I kinda struggle with the SFP+ transceiver. I notice there are RJ45, Multimode/Single Mode fiber, DAC. In general, the RJ45 seems to be most expensive out of the 3. Another consideration is the NIC, I am more towards getting SFP+ NIC since I am already going to get some SFP transceiver. 

How long is the cable run? If the switch and nic are sfp+, it seems like a sfp+ cable would be easier than using transceivers and cat6