I understand that this capability is now included in unRAID, and have read one guide on setting it up, but it's a bit over my head.

 

http://www.sgvulcan.com/network-interface-bonding-in-slackware-version-13-1/

 

My goal is to resolve an issue where my media player freezes up occasionally, which I believe is related to SABnzbd unpacking downloads while I'm streaming a 1080p rip to the HTPC.  Maybe this is not what is causing the issue, and bonding isn't my solution, I'm not sure.

 

However, because I was having some network access issues in the past using the Realtek RTL8111C onboard NIC, I ended up buying an Intel EXPI9301CTBLK NIC, so I have both in the server, and have recently run Cat6 cable to it's new home, and went ahead and ran 2 cables to the location, so I think I have everything I need to get Bonding setup, but I'm not quite sure how to do it.  The stuff I've read indicates there are some options I need to consider, including my switch, and I suppose my router.  I saw someone was discussing setting up 2 subnets because it would allow more reliable/faster access to the server, but it was way over my head...

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4815.msg58240#msg58240

 

So, does anyone have any ideas/suggestions on how to take advantage of the hardware I already have to maximize my connection/speed to the unRAID server.

 

I have a U-Verse modem/router (limited to 100mb) which is connected to an D-Link DGS-1008G 8-port Gigabit switch.  All machines are currently connected to this switch, including the unRAID server.  I have a Cisco E3000 router, which I'm planning to flash with DD-WRT firmware, which I understand offers a range of options/abilities.  My plan would be to then connect the modem directly to this router, and use the Cisco for all routing.  I think it would be best to connect both connections to the unRAID server to this router, and one connection to the switch.  Then connect all other machines to the switch directly.  One of the other "machines" includes an x-Box which is only 100mb speed.  I don't think this would cause the other connections to slow down, but I'm not a network guru, and have heard/read something about this, so want to confirm.  I also have a Yamaha AVR which has a 100mb Ethernet connection, which I occasionally use for internet radio streaming.  Should I connect all 100mb machines to the U-Verse modem/router, to keep them off the gigabit LAN, or does it matter?  Would it be better to turn off all routing on the U-Verse modem/router?

 

Anything else I need to consider, or setup, or change to maximize the benefits of bonding?

Network bonding is a way to combine two seperate network interfaces for extra thruput and/or redundancy.

 

Since all your local internet traffic will be going towards that one internetfacing router bonding will have no positive effect.

 

Network is also absolutely not the bottleneck with an unraid system, disks are.

 

If you want to do something network related then change your unraid, pc and mediaplater to 1gig networkspeed, that will give you maximum thruput on reads.

 

To solve your stuttering while unpacking issue just make sure sab stops downloading while unpacking (its a setting)

Network bonding is a way to combine two seperate network interfaces for extra thruput and/or redundancy.

 

Since all your local internet traffic will be going towards that one internetfacing router bonding will have no positive effect.

 

Network is also absolutely not the bottleneck with an unraid system, disks are.

 

If you want to do something network related then change your unraid, pc and mediaplater to 1gig networkspeed, that will give you maximum thruput on reads.

 

To solve your stuttering while unpacking issue just make sure sab stops downloading while unpacking (its a setting)

 

Hmmm...

 

Okay.  All my PC's, and unraid are all using Gigabyte LAN, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting I change.  I'm also not sure how to change the media player (JRiver MC18) to a different network speed.

 

My hope was that bonding would allow me to stream Hi Def streams to several machines simultaneously without choking.  Also, I like to learn, and since I have what I think is everything I need to do the bonding, i figure it can't hurt, so I was hoping to set it up, but still need some help to get it done.  At least until I have some time to experiment, which won't be for a while yet.

 

Also, I do have SAB set to stop downloading while unpacking, so that's not what's causing it.  I'm not sure it's anything to so with SAB at all, it was just a guess.

If your complete LAN is Gigabit then what would you "bond" ? More then a gigabit is not usefull at all..

 

In other words: if you have gigabit between your unraid system and the system you play the media with, then there is no bandwidth issue and therefor "bonding" would not do anything (actually it will: since it will make your setup more complex it will undoubtedly give you more troubles)

I obviously don't know everything about bonding, or networking, and you could be completely correct.  However, if I could get it setup, I'm not sure that 'complexity' would be a real problem.  Once it's working, I don't see that it needs any maintenance, so the ongoing bonding should not cause any more issues than having 10 disks being constantly used.

 

I have several computers connected to the network, and there can/will be times when up to 5 people are either copying to, or streaming HD video from the unRAID server, so I would think that dual connections could be helpful.  Perhaps I'm mistaken about that, I can't say I'm an expert in networking, far from it.

 

However, I do want to learn, and don't see much/any downside to taking advantage of the ability to setup the bonding, so, if anyone can provide some real-world unRAID specific instructions to getting this working, I would really appreciate it.

 

Thanks.

I have created a GUI interface which should make using bonding relatively easy (certain modes require a proper switch/router configuration, which is out of scope here).

 

A picture is given in the topic "Go script recent examples", have a look there...

 

That having said. A network capacity of 1Gb/s is more than adequate to support your needs (e.g. you can stream 10 HD movies concurrently and it still uses roughly half of the link capacity).

 

If you experience slow-downs it is more likely to come from processor or application itself...

 

That is excellent, thank you.  When will the version be available that has your work included?

 

I suppose that I probably don't need it, based on both of you telling me Gigabit should be fast enough, but it probably won't hurt anything

That is excellent, thank you.  When will the version be available that has your work included?

 

I suppose that I probably don't need it, based on both of you telling me Gigabit should be fast enough, but it probably won't hurt anything

This functionality is currently under testing, it is not included in the upcoming release of SF, but might be in the one after that.

 

Bonding is not only about throughput increase, it can also be used to increase system availability. I have set it to "Active-Standby" whereby the server keeps reachable when the main interface should fail...

 

Btw also working for me is "Adaptive load balancing", this mode distributes transmit and receive packets over both interfaces, this allows for both increased capacity and fault tolerance without the need of special settings required on the "switch" side.

 

This works on several machines I've built. Put this at the end of the go file:

 

 

ifconfig eth0 down
modprobe bonding mode=balance-rr miimon=100
ifconfig bond0 192.168.11.198 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
ifenslave bond0 eth0
ifenslave bond0 eth1
route add default gw 192.168.11.1 bond0

Set Obtain IP Address Automatically: to No

 

Leave IP Address, Netmask, and Gateway blank.

 

Manually add a DNS server or 2.

 

If the additional NIC does not work, i.e., it doesn't show up in ifconfig, try a different brand. Intel always works and Rosewell PCI-e works a well.

My goal is to resolve an issue where my media player freezes up occasionally, which I believe is related to SABnzbd unpacking downloads while I'm streaming a 1080p rip to the HTPC. 

 

This freeze or glitch is a know issue/limitation of unRAID.  There are a few threads where it is discussed.  Here is one such thread:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=20313.0

 

It happens to me all the time.  I wish we could get a resolution, but alas I don't hold out much hope of it happening anytime soon.