Recommended 1gbE NIC for IEEE 802.3ad bonding?

[kakburken]

I am going to buy an extra PCI-e 1gbE NIC and use bonding (with the one on the motherboard). But before I purchase one I’d like to know if there’s any recommendations on which brand or model that works best with Unraid?

 

as the subject says it’s going to be bonded using IEEE 802.3ad.

 

 There’s no use in recommending NIC with 2.5gbE or 10gbE instead, because I’m not going to switch out all my network hardware. At the moment I only have a gigabit LAN and have no plans on upgrading all ubiquiti switches to support 2.5/10gbE. Got enough expenses playing with Unraid at the moment.

[JonathanM]

Do you already have a switch that supports LAG?

 

Typical real world experience doesn't show much benefit though, probably not worth the expense and effort.

[kakburken]

1 minute ago, JonathanM said:

Do you already have a switch that supports LAG?

 

Typical real world experience doesn't show much benefit though, probably not worth the expense and effort.

Yes. Wouldn’t have said I was going to use IEEE 802.3ad if I didn’t.

 

But I do not agree with that there’s not much benefit. Having “two gbit connections” (not 2gbE) of sorts instead of one does indeed have benefits I would say. Especially when multiple people are streaming and/or stuff is simultaneously being seeded/downloaded or whatnot. 
 

but, anyhow.. this wasn’t intended to be a discussion about the benefits of using LACP. So I’ll gladly take recommendations on the NICs now instead.

 

 

 but thanks for trying to help!

[MAM59]

you can use almost every nic, all wont do what you like to get. (And yeah I have read that you do not want to hear this, but then face the results)

Bonding is totally "out", go to 10G instead or at least to 2.5g or 5G.

 

[kakburken]

1 hour ago, MAM59 said:

you can use almost every nic, all wont do what you like to get. (And yeah I have read that you do not want to hear this, but then face the results)

Bonding is totally "out", go to 10G instead or at least to 2.5g or 5G.

 

This wasn’t a question regarding if the NICs supported IEEE 802.3ad but rather a question is there were any recommendations on which brand or model of NICs where more suitable/works better with Unraid than others. 
 

perhaps I should’ve phrased my question differently.

 

And, you don’t know what you’re talking about if you think that IEEE 802.3ad only works one way. It balances in both directions. 
 

and no, once again.. I’m not going to spend almost $1200 for a switch that can handle 10gbE when it’s good enough with the current equipment (1gbE) using IEEE 802.3ad LACP and a NIC for about $50. 
 

and frankly I get a bit frustrated when I ask a simple question and people make up their own questions they feel the need to answer. 
 

I’m a busy man and stuff like that just wastes both yours and my time. 
 

but perhaps asking about NICs and LACP here was a sensitive subject and something people gets offended by. If that’s the case I’m sorry. 

Edited June 28 by kakburken

[MAM59]

6 minutes ago, kakburken said:

recommendations on which brand or model of NICs where more suitable/works better with Unraid than others. 

Yeah, I think you do not understand the answers. Its either ALL or NONE. This is because IEEE 802.ad is not handled by ANY NIC in the world. Its one layer above, a driver for the OS.

So, the actual NIC does not matter at all.

And, to make you feel sad even more: UNRAID does not balance, it uses the simple way to select a certain nic for a single communication (read "all conncetions from host a use nic a") and so on

So, keep on dreaming...

 

[kakburken]

21 minutes ago, MAM59 said:

Yeah, I think you do not understand the answers. Its either ALL or NONE. This is because IEEE 802.ad is not handled by ANY NIC in the world. Its one layer above, a driver for the OS.

So, the actual NIC does not matter at all.

And, to make you feel sad even more: UNRAID does not balance, it uses the simple way to select a certain nic for a single communication (read "all conncetions from host a use nic a") and so on

So, keep on dreaming...

 

 And you still don’t understand the question.

 

” Are there any recommended NICs to use with Unraid? That works better than others, for whatever reason..”

 

 Is that clear enough?

 

So Unraid do not support IEEE 802.3ad? I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that mode 4 on the bonding settings was for IEEE 802.3ad. And since it’s a standard it works the same everywhere or else it isn’t IEEE 802.3ad. Hence it should be able to setup load-balancing and not only failover.

 

 Though I do not find that specific information right now.

 

But I’m just gonna go ahead and buy an intel I210-T1.

Edited June 28 by kakburken