VLAN or LACP

[beemaster]

Dear community,

I am going to build FreeNAS server for home. Let's assume Supermicro motherboard with 2 Intel NICS and haswell i3 CPU, (6) 2TB drives RAIDZ2, 16GB ECC ram.

Imagine situation:
PC1 and PC2 are transferring data to FreeNAS simultaneously. In this case the limiting factor (most probably) would be the speed of single Intel NIC on Supermicro mobo, with theoretical maximum of 125 megabytes per second.

I recently discovered there is a thing called LACP which allows me to use both Intel NICs if I have managed switch with LACP support too. However I've read on this forum, that LACP does not make any sense if number of simultaneous connections is less than .. say 10. Because it is not guaranteed connections will spread 5x5. Am I right?

I also know there is a thing called VLAN. If I put PC1 and PC2 to different VLANs and connect Intel NICS to different VLANs and setup FreeNAS accordingly, theoretical maximum would be 125 x 2 = 250 megabytes per second. Of course I understand that this works only in case both PC1 and PC2 are transferring data at the same time.

I have Asus RT-N66U router which supports both VLAN and LACP. Does it make sense to configure LACP or should I go with VLAN approach? What is a probability of PC2 using different NIC when PC1 is transferring data with LACP?

 

[dlavigne]

A couple of things to note in http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Link_Aggregations:

The benefit can only be observed when multiple clients are transferring files from your NAS. The flow entering into your NAS depends on the Ethernet switch load-balance algorithm.

It also depends on which sharing protocol is being used. Refer to http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Li...ons_When_Using_LACP.2C_MPIO.2C_NFS.2C_or_ESXi.

 

[drvnk]

Beemaster, I thought it said beermaster, but admittedly, bees don't get enough love.
I've wondered the same thing as you asked. I'm a noob and the link made my head ache but I loved every minute of it. Real world applications help the new vocabulary (network noob video editor who wants to back up content) sink in. I've wondered about Link Aggregation since seeing speeds posted for Synology Diskstations. I have a DS1511+ and was looking at the specs for the DS1813+

• 211.88 MB/sec Writing, 352.39 MB/sec Reading
• Four LAN Ports with Link Aggregation Support

Real world with a single user, would I ever see these numbers? I guess this kinda belongs in the 'Performance' section, but I'll apply it back to hardware. I have an Asus RT-N66U router and bought a Cisco and HP switch (supporting LACP) to play around with. It seemed like it was A LOT more trouble than it was worth. Silly me, i thought it was all plug and play, but I found myself tweaking jumbo frames and size and driving myself crazy.

 

[beemaster]

Beemaster, I thought it said beermaster, but admittedly, bees don't get enough love.

Exactly. Show more love to bees and they will give you some honey :)

bought a Cisco and HP switch (supporting LACP) to play around with. It seemed like it was A LOT more trouble than it was worth. Silly me, i thought it was all plug and play, but I found myself tweaking jumbo frames and size and driving myself crazy.

This is a real problem of all noobs including me. First I buy hardware then I discover it doesn't work like I want. Happened to me lots of times. But I figured out what to do. Have to wait at least couple of months no matter how bad I want to buy a new toy. Only after that buy it.

In your case you are out of luck I am afraid. You want to connect 2 NICs on your PC with another 2 NICs on you NAS. I think this is madness. I don't know if it is possible at all.

For my case I have figured out a simpler solution with 2 subnets in my home.

Devices from different networks (192.168.1.0) and (192.168.2.0) are guaranteed to use different network interfaces on NAS. So both reads and writes should speed up in case multiple devices are using NAS at the same time.

I already checked my Asus RT-N66U, it supports creation of different networks for each of its 4 ethernet ports. I had to install Asus Merlin firmware http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=7846
and use script from this thread http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=14983&highlight=vlan with slight modifications.

The thing I didn't check is whether FreeNAS supports connection to 2 networks. I hope it does. What I mean is it possible to connect FreeNAS so it has different addresses on different network interfaces (like on the diagram)?

 

[dlavigne]

The thing I didn't check is whether FreeNAS supports connection to 2 networks. I hope it does. What I mean is it possible to connect FreeNAS so it has different addresses on different network interfaces (like on the diagram)?

Yup, refer to http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Interfaces for details.