If your NAS has multiple Ethernet ports should you use all of them? We look at different scenarios with our test Synology DS1522+ using 1, 2 & 4 ports active.
good video I think you should absolutely use all the network ports on a Nas and if you're bold enough to build your own you should add additional Network ports as a matter of fact in general we should always try to use every available hole rather we need to or not😁
"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." - While the link aggregation is great, the bottleneck is the 2.5GbE adapter. The switch looks like it could handle up to 10GbE but you would still top off at ~4GbE due to the four 1GbE ports on the NAS. Just an observation.
Well, yes AND no. Depends on what is connected to the switch and what you actually use. With aggregated 4x 1Gbps ports of the NAS you'd obviously use 4 aggregated access ports on the switch and the 10Gbps port for trunk or other server connection. That would give you 4Gbps throughput (under ideal conditions) towards the NAS, but you's still have plenty od throughput available to connect to something else. Example: switch has 2x 10Gbps ports, of which 1 is a trunk connecting to another part of the network and the other is an access port of a server, and 16x 1Gbps ports, of which 4 are aggregated for the NAS, 4 aggregated for a second server, 4 connect other servers, and on the remaining 4 are workstations. So (under ideal circumstances = all the transfers are able to combine in a way that always fully saturates the interfaces): - the NAS has a theoretical connectivity of 4Gbps with multiple peers, the first server has 10Gbps, second server has 4Gbps, 4 servers have 1gbps each, 4 workstations have 1Gbps each, and whatever is bahind the trunk has 10Gbps. - if ALL of the other devices access the NAS at the same time and fulley saturate its connectivity, they can use its resourses at 4Gbps combined, 1st server's at 10Gbps, 2nd server's at 4Gbps, 3rd~6th server's at 1Gbps each, etc... It only depends on what device demands what from whom up to it's own available connectivity throughput. For example, if workstation in the "remote" segment all access the NAS at the same time, they can do it at 4Gbps combined, AND they still have 6Gbps available to access the remaining servers and workstations on this switch. Obviously however, there's no real point in assigning more throughput to a device that isn't powerful enough to saturate it, so if the NAS can't serve up the data at more than 3Gbps (regardless of whether it's data served off the disk or computed /redirected on the fly), you don't need to aggregate more than 3 ports for it, and you can use the fourth port for out-of-band management access (useful if you don't want to be cut off the management interface by heavy traffic).
Fun video.. was your laptop running 2.5gb.. that of course would limit the transfer to 2.5gb max. No matter how improved the nas speeds got.. As well as.. changing the MTU to 9000 really helps (you need to set both the pc and NAS MTU ..)
only nit is the 4 ports (w/o switch changes) didn't show an increase because you were throttled on the '2' recipients being 1G each. If you used 4 destination it would have showed the increase, no?
You are absolutely right, did a newer video with four computers pulling data at the same time and the transfer speed got above 3Gb/s. Will be installing the 10Gb/s port into the NAS and will check speed then.
Great work! thank you. However, bonding does disable DHCP and SMB and/or SMB Multichannel. Without SMB NAS is not visible in PC network neighborhood. How to over come this limitation of bonding? Is there a workaround to have bonds along with SMB?
I had never heard the term 'SMB Multichannel', I love to learn!! I will discuss that topic in the next Bonding video. I will put your question out to the audience, it is a good one.
great video! clear and easy to follow! great info that most people miss out too!
Thanks for the kind words, glad you found it helpful!
Just came upon your channel. I loved this video! Would love to see the contrast with a 10 GB NIC. Thanks for making the video.
Mahalo for watching! Making 10G video now, will be out by the weekend.
Really nice tests, appreciated!
Glad you liked them!
This was amazing and heavily needed
Mahalo!
good video I think you should absolutely use all the network ports on a Nas and if you're bold enough to build your own you should add additional Network ports as a matter of fact in general we should always try to use every available hole rather we need to or not😁
Do you build your own, if so, what is your fav distro? Active Backup is our go to for small business VM & bare metal backup/restore.
Hey Matt, really great tutorial
Glad you liked it!
Nice work, i’ve been running 2 lan link agg and bonded with my 918+ and my unifi switch. Good stuff, thanks.
Great confirmation of my results!
"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." - While the link aggregation is great, the bottleneck is the 2.5GbE adapter. The switch looks like it could handle up to 10GbE but you would still top off at ~4GbE due to the four 1GbE ports on the NAS. Just an observation.
So true, I always thought that with the bonding, you got a true 4Gb/s link....not qty 4 x 1Gb/s links that work together!
Well, yes AND no.
Depends on what is connected to the switch and what you actually use.
With aggregated 4x 1Gbps ports of the NAS you'd obviously use 4 aggregated access ports on the switch and the 10Gbps port for trunk or other server connection. That would give you 4Gbps throughput (under ideal conditions) towards the NAS, but you's still have plenty od throughput available to connect to something else.
Example: switch has 2x 10Gbps ports, of which 1 is a trunk connecting to another part of the network and the other is an access port of a server, and 16x 1Gbps ports, of which 4 are aggregated for the NAS, 4 aggregated for a second server, 4 connect other servers, and on the remaining 4 are workstations.
So (under ideal circumstances = all the transfers are able to combine in a way that always fully saturates the interfaces):
- the NAS has a theoretical connectivity of 4Gbps with multiple peers, the first server has 10Gbps, second server has 4Gbps, 4 servers have 1gbps each, 4 workstations have 1Gbps each, and whatever is bahind the trunk has 10Gbps.
- if ALL of the other devices access the NAS at the same time and fulley saturate its connectivity, they can use its resourses at 4Gbps combined, 1st server's at 10Gbps, 2nd server's at 4Gbps, 3rd~6th server's at 1Gbps each, etc... It only depends on what device demands what from whom up to it's own available connectivity throughput. For example, if workstation in the "remote" segment all access the NAS at the same time, they can do it at 4Gbps combined, AND they still have 6Gbps available to access the remaining servers and workstations on this switch.
Obviously however, there's no real point in assigning more throughput to a device that isn't powerful enough to saturate it, so if the NAS can't serve up the data at more than 3Gbps (regardless of whether it's data served off the disk or computed /redirected on the fly), you don't need to aggregate more than 3 ports for it, and you can use the fourth port for out-of-band management access (useful if you don't want to be cut off the management interface by heavy traffic).
Would like to see it with a lower end switch.....great video!
You got it!
Added the video with lower end switches, enjoy! - ua-cam.com/video/FvgUXH-OaSM/v-deo.html
VERY useful
Glad you found it helpful!
Thanks
You bet! Glad you found it useful.
Fun video.. was your laptop running 2.5gb.. that of course would limit the transfer to 2.5gb max. No matter how improved the nas speeds got..
As well as.. changing the MTU to 9000 really helps (you need to set both the pc and NAS MTU ..)
Going to blow past the 2.5G barrier when we add 10G devices to the network and a 10G interface to the NAS. Stay tuned!
only nit is the 4 ports (w/o switch changes) didn't show an increase because you were throttled on the '2' recipients being 1G each. If you used 4 destination it would have showed the increase, no?
You are absolutely right, did a newer video with four computers pulling data at the same time and the transfer speed got above 3Gb/s. Will be installing the 10Gb/s port into the NAS and will check speed then.
Great work! thank you. However, bonding does disable DHCP and SMB and/or SMB Multichannel. Without SMB NAS is not visible in PC network neighborhood. How to over come this limitation of bonding? Is there a workaround to have bonds along with SMB?
I had never heard the term 'SMB Multichannel', I love to learn!! I will discuss that topic in the next Bonding video. I will put your question out to the audience, it is a good one.
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