Setting up SMB 3 multichannel on FreeNAS

[toadman]

Question:
If my receiving client is on a 5g/ 2.5g Nic, and my server has SMB multichannel enable with 4 ports, will it be able to do 2.5G with SMB multichannel? or will it drop down to 1G?

Good Question. I don't know the answer to that definitely.

But my guess would be "it will operate at 1G." I think the idea is the transfer is split among X network links, *if* the client *and* server both have those X network links. In your case the client has 1 link. So I would think there would be a single connection to the server link that is on the same subnet as your client. And that one link would operate at 1G due to that being the max on the server side (assuming you have a 4 port 1G card in the server).

 

[Camofelix]

Good Question. I don't know the answer to that definitely.

But my guess would be "it will operate at 1G." I think the idea is the transfer is split among X network links, *if* the client *and* server both have those X network links. In your case the client has 1 link. So I would think there would be a single connection to the server link that is on the same subnet as your client. And that one link would operate at 1G due to that being the max on the server side (assuming you have a 4 port 1G card in the server).

I assumed as much :( I thought they're might be a possibility of it working. One way to test would be a 10G client and a 4*1g client. Unfortunately I haven't gotten they're yet (Student life != lot's of hardware!)
I wonder if through a driver tweak it would be possible to split the clients 2.5g/5g/10g interface into multiple discrete "virtual" nics'. Similar in idea to how you can mount multiple jails to a single physical interface. (since the access to the nice is virtualized over an internal bridge IIRC)

Trying to find inexpensive ways to get higher than 1G performance to clients on the network that can't accept PCIe cards.

 

[toadman]

Yea, that's basically SR-IOV (or equivalent). You could (theoretically, depending on your OS/hypervisor) do that as long as you were able to configure the network to allow multiple subnets to that single client port. (Should be easy with vlans for example.)

 

[Camofelix]

Yea, that's basically SR-IOV (or equivalent). You could (theoretically, depending on your OS/hypervisor) do that as long as you were able to configure the network to allow multiple subnets to that single client port. (Should be easy with vlans for example.)

(don't have much experience at L3 so forgive my lack of knowledge)

The question then's becomes SMB's ability to support multiple threads over multiple Vlan's, and have the configuration live on the usb/thunderbolt adapter so that it will auto setup on a client machine.

 

[toadman]

I don't think SMB really cares about vlans, it only cares about IP addresses (I think). If those IPs live on vlans, so be it.

My config uses separate vlans per subnet and it works. So there is at least one data point that says it works. :)

 

[Camofelix]

I don't think SMB really cares about vlans, it only cares about IP addresses (I think). If those IPs live on vlans, so be it.

My config uses separate vlans per subnet and it works. So there is at least one data point that says it works. :)

do you have a mix of 10g and 1g on your network? if so, would you be able to test it's ability to do multi gig -> multi single gig SMB support?

 

[toadman]

Unfortunately no. 1G only. Which is the reason I went to multi-channel. :)

 

[toadman]

do you have a mix of 10g and 1g on your network? if so, would you be able to test it's ability to do multi gig -> multi single gig SMB support?

However, depending on the hardware you have available, if you setup a virtual environment running esxi (or equivalent) you might be able to test it by setting up a client VM with a 10G (and partitioning it with the OS) and a freenas VM with multiple E1000s (though these might run faster than 1G each, unless you specifically set a max for them).

 

[Camofelix]

However, depending on the hardware you have available, if you setup a virtual environment running esxi (or equivalent) you might be able to test it by setting up a client VM with a 10G (and partitioning it with the OS) and a freenas VM with multiple E1000s (though these might run faster than 1G each, unless you specifically set a max for them).

Unfortunately don't :/

I'm running an HP ml 350 G6 (dual gigabit Lan) into a Meraki MS 120p 8p (have to love it when they give out free hardware at a Career fair!). All other clients that are hardline are using 1gig adapters via usb or thunderbolt2.

I'm exploring 2 options (on the cheap)

1. With multi gig becoming a thing, I was thinking of getting a SFP+ card, tossing it in the server, using a multi gig SFP->RJ45 adapter in the card, running a it to my room via a cat 6 run in the wall, and using an usb-> 5g/2.5G adapter into my laptop. I'd have to create a bridge inside of freenas between the SFP+ card and the built in NIC So is still get gigabit internet, but that should be doable.

2. The other option would be putting that 10G cat6 run from my server into a switch in my room that has one 10G port and then connecting 2 usb/thunderbolt adapters into the switch, with those 2 adapters running as an SMB group. Therefore my asking about multi gig compatibility with SMB groups.

Slightly off topic, but because my personal machine is a Mac, would you happen to know if AFP is multithreaded? Might make sense to use AFP shares instead of SMB in that case

 

[toadman]

If you implement option 2 can you not just setup the 10gb port on the switch as a trunk, run multiple vlans (1 subnet each) to the 10gb card in freenas? (And setup the vlans on the freenas server.) Seems like that would work.

Re: AFP, I don't know re: multithreaded, but I think it's basically deprecated now in favor of SMB.

 

[TidalWave]

I have true nas 12. Should I turn SMB multi thread on? We have Mac OSX Catalina. Would the Mac OS version support SMB multichannel?

 

[Basil Hendroff]

It appears multichannel SMB is unsupported under TrueNAS 12. See JIRA ticket TC-1793 specifically this comment https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/T...ssuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-136314

 

[anodos]

It appears multichannel SMB is unsupported under TrueNAS 12. See JIRA ticket TC-1793 specifically this comment https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/T...ssuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-136314

Yes, the timetable was contingent on upstream development. Samba 4.15 (currently RC2) is where multichannel is no longer experimental. When the feature is officially supported, there will be a GUI option for it. Generally speaking, if doing something on the NAS requires filling in auxiliary parameters, then it is not a supported feature.

Unsupported in the case of multichannel means that there are edge-case bugs that can result in data corruption.