Dual port network cards

[psreekanthteach]

Hi All,


I wanted to know if FreeNas 8 is compatable for dual port networks and LACP. Any help and pointers appreciated.

Regards
Sree

 

[Milhouse]

Have you tried searching the forum, that's where I'd start.

 

[louisk]

Yes, it is. I'm using it both at home and at work. I've only tried intel em drivers.

 

[jgreco]

And you should probably stick with server-grade cards if possible.

 

[psreekanthteach]

thanks all for the response. just one more thing ... i have a virgin super hub router for wireless internet access. if i install dual port card and then connect both ports, will there be any increase in the through put?

 

[survive]

Hi psreekanthteach,

Your switch\router (the other end of the link, whatever it may be) needs to know that you are running LACP to the FreeNAS box and most likely the Virgin super hub router simply isn't smart enough to do this. A managed switch will use some sort of algorithm to balance traffic between the 2 links. This algorithm could be as simple as putting all the traffic over one link & keeping the other for failover to some sophisticated hash based on ip address or MAC address.

jgreco's suggestion to use server grade cards is something to keep in mind...I wouldn't want to run LACP over 2 different brands of NIC even if FreeNAS allowed me to configure one. If you are interested & aren't opposed to buying off ebay there are always some nice dual port HP PCI-e NICs for sale for under $50.00.

-Will


I'm going to say there will most likely not be any performance increase to a single client.

 

[psreekanthteach]

thanks Will.. your thoughts were helpful.

 

[jgreco]

Also lots of wonderful goodness in inexpensive gigabit ethernet switches these days, you *do* need to find a (web?) managed one, generally speaking, for things like this to be configured correctly. Netgear makes the GS108T which someone else had good luck with; I have one of these but haven't used link agg on it.