10x Your Network Speed.. On a Budget! With unRAID?

[Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou]

I was watching the linustechtip's video about running two 10 Gbps network cards directly to achieve faster transfer speeds, but it only covered setting this up between two windows 10 machines.  While I am almost positive that this could be done between a windows 10 machine and an unRAID server, I'm not very familiar with Linux and would have absolutely no idea where to start.  In fact, I'm wondering if I maybe am starting this thread in the wrong section.  I honestly have no idea if there is a more appropriate area to ask this question.  It's about networking...but specific to unRAID/Linux...so maybe I should put this in the NAS area?  I feel like maybe not though, because this is a more specific NAS issue, a networking issue.  The reason I'm typing out my thoughts is that I'm hoping I won't be attacked by people telling me this is in the wrong section, to convey that I actually tried to think it through and pick the most appropriate section...but I digress....

 

has anyone used the method described in the video 

between a windows 10 machine and a linux machine or even better and more specifically, between a windows 10 machine and an unRAID system?  And if so, what do I need to know to get these two systems talking correctly?  Would it be enough to simply follow the steps in this video for the windows 10 machine and just setup the network card on unRAID with a static ip?  Or is it more tricky than that?  Thanks!

[leadeater]

Yes the principal is the same. Install a 10Gb network card in the unRAID server and desktop then configure the networking. Be aware though that it is unlikely to give you the full 10Gb speed coping files on a network share hosted on unRAID to/from Windows currently. There are some features of SMB3 not yet implemented in SAMBA which is what unRAID uses to create network shares, but this is about to be updated soon.

 

You will most definitely get a huge speed boost though so if you are wanting to do this and are able to do it cheaply then sure go ahead, you won't be disappointed.

 

[Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou]

Good to hear, thank you!  My cache drives are only SATA 6 so I wouldn't hit full 10 Gb speeds regardless.  But it's still good to know it'll be updated soon, as at some point I might try to use two PCIe SSDs for my cache.

[IceWulf]

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

Yes the principal is the same. Install a 10Gb network card in the unRAID server and desktop then configure the networking. Be aware though that it is unlikely to give you the full 10Gb speed coping files on a network share hosted on unRAID to/from Windows currently. There are some features of SMB3 not yet implemented in SAMBA which is what unRAID uses to create network shares, but this is about to be updated soon.

 

You will most definitely get a huge speed boost though so if you are wanting to do this and are able to do it cheaply then sure go ahead, you won't be disappointed.

 

NFS works fine if  you can use that. There is an NFS client in Windows 7 if you want SPEED

 

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/nfs-client-for-windows-7/42aae25d-d077-4ff9-abdf-7314a589c46d?auth=1

[Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou]

10 minutes ago, IceWulf said:

NFS works fine if  you can use that. There is an NFS client in Windows 7 if you want SPEED

 

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/nfs-client-for-windows-7/42aae25d-d077-4ff9-abdf-7314a589c46d?auth=1

Awesome, I might give that a shot then!  I already ordered 2 x x520-DA1s and a direct attach copper cable.  I'll play around with my options when they come in   

[IceWulf]

Just now, Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou said:

Awesome, I might give that a shot then!  I already ordered 2 x x520-DA1s and a direct attach copper cable.  I'll play around with my options when they come in   

Feel free to use Nekodrive if you can't get the native Microsoft driver.

 

https://code.google.com/archive/p/nekodrive/

 

Sample install instructions:

"

Windows – Client

1. Download and install the Dokan library the current version isDokanInstall_0.6.0.exe
2. Download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4
3. Download and install Neko Drive the current version is NekoDrive_0_9_0.7z
4. After NekoDrive is installed, launch the application.
5. Change the Target Connection ip address to your server IP (e.g. 192.168.2.1).
6. (optional) Set version to V3
7. Click on connect and it should connect to your server
8. To mount the drive in windows, set the Device location and select a Disk name. Make sure Devices is set to the correct item (e.g. /home/username/NFS-Shared)
9. Click on mount and the drive should show up in Windows Explorer"

Enjoy!

[IceWulf]

Is this something we should test? I can make a comparison between samba performance and NFS if someone would find this informative.

[Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou]

10 hours ago, IceWulf said:

Is this something we should test? I can make a comparison between samba performance and NFS if someone would find this informative.

imo, there can never be too much information on the interwebz.  If there's an experience someone can share, or test results that they can share, and if they're willing, it can only help to share it!

[Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou]

Ughhh...I can't get this to work and I've absolutely no idea where to begin looking.  I've installed both cards, one in the windows 10 system and one in the unraid system, and I've connected the direct attach copper cable to both.  There's a solid green light on each card and another green light that's blinking slowly on each card.  Windows 10 says it is a 10 Gbps connection, unidentified network, Public network and No network access.  I manually assigned an ip of 192.168.5.1 to the windows 10 system and 192.168.5.2 to the unraid system, turned off firewall and disabled other network adapters and...ping failed.  It just outright failed.  I can't use \\192.168.5.2 to connect via SMB either.  I'm frustrated and have very little experience with linux so I don't know what I need to be looking for on the linux side.  Any ideas?

[johmei]

Yay!  I received access to my account again!  This is Cantgetintomyoriginalaccou...I'm going to be replying from this account from now on.  Just wanted to clear that up!  Thanks!

[johmei]

What a pain in the lower back...I got it working, but largely due to my limited knowledge of linux and it's CLI, I may have not done it in the best way.  I had to unbridge the connections first in unRAID which caused network issues which was frustrating.  I believe I'll have to manually pass through a network adapter to a VM now which is not a big deal really, although not ideal at all.  I manually set the interfaces up using ifconfig and I THINK I have it set so that everytime it boots it will reconfigure the interfaces appropriately.  At any rate, it seems to be working now, so hopefully it keeps working