Network bonding

[TODDLT]

So I just got my 1st motherboard with two onboard NIC's. 

 

As I dont have a managed switch, I think my setting options are:

 

Active Backup - I assume this just means if one goes down the 2nd takes over.

 

balance tlb

balance alb

I'm also assuming these two settings balance the network load between two connections. 

 

Can you tell me what the difference between tlb and alb is? 

 

I tried tlb, and after hitting apply, I had to reboot the box before I could see it, but it did come up fine, in balance tlb mode.

 

I think i'd go with a balanced setting but want to know the differences between them.

 

thanks.

[unevent]

http://www.linuxhorizon.ro/bonding.html

[TODDLT]

http://www.linuxhorizon.ro/bonding.html

 

Thanks that was very helpful.

 

It says the first 4 options are the most used.  Is there a down side to balance tlb / alb? 

If i'm reading correctly the difference between those two is tlb only balances outgoing traffic while alb balances incoming as well.  It seems like alb would put more overhead on the system to tag outgoing traffic correctly? 

 

Is there a downside to either of those options?  It didn't seem to say so in the article.  Are they less stable for any reason?

[unevent]

http://www.linuxhorizon.ro/bonding.html

 

Thanks that was very helpful.

 

It says the first 4 options are the most used.  Is there a down side to balance tlb / alb? 

If i'm reading correctly the difference between those two is tlb only balances outgoing traffic while alb balances incoming as well.  It seems like alb would put more overhead on the system to tag outgoing traffic correctly? 

 

Is there a downside to either of those options?  It didn't seem to say so in the article.  Are they less stable for any reason?

Good questions for a Google search.  I have not used those particular modes, only balance-rr which requires a managed or 'smart' switch.

 

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

 

 

[TODDLT]

Question for anyone who knows:

 

Can Mode 0, 2, or 3 be done with a "Smart Switch" or do they need to be managed switches and manually programed?

[JorgeB]

Only mode 4 requires a smart or managed switch, all others work with any switch.

[dlandon]

There are some limitations to some modes.  Mode 1 requires nothing special in the NICs or your switch.  I use the tlb (mode 5) because it requires nothing special in the NICs and no switch support.  The 802.3ad mode requires ad support in the switch.  The alb (mode 6) requires NICs that can have their MAC address changed on the fly.  You generally have to go to a full managed switch to get ad support.  A full managed switch in a home network is probably overkill.  I use a smart switch that does not support ad, but I have some control of QOS, flow control, etc.

 

I would stay with Mode 1, or 5.  Using the other modes don't really gain you a lot unless you go to the 802.3ad (mode 4) and have a managed switch.  In my opinion the cost of the managed switch isn't justified to gain 2GB speed in a home network.

[dlandon]

If you really want to do a deep dive into bonding check this out: https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/bonding#Switch_Configuration

[unevent]

Smart switch can be had for less than $40 such as the Netgear clone TP-Link TL-SG108E which supports LAG is prolly one of the cheapest options for home use.  Fairly certain mode 0 (balance-rr) requires switch support (LAG/port grouping/trunking).

 

I use balance-rr on unRAID in a LAG port group on the 'smart' switch and balance-rr on my Xubuntu desktop and get 2Gb speeds.  I can transfer to and from over the network at the speed of the hard drives which is usually ~160MB/s and initial writes of ~250MB/s until unRAID starts writing then it yo-yo's as one side is SSD and the other is spinner.  I static map via NFS to the server for steam games, documents folder, etc. and all are just as fast as if they were local spinner.  Windows 10 SSD Samba transfers (no support for balance-rr) I get 100-110MB/s to/from cache drive.

[JorgeB]

Fairly certain mode 0 (balance-rr) requires switch support (LAG/port grouping/trunking).

 

It doesn't, though you can achieve better performance with a managed switch using VLANs, see here:

 

http://louwrentius.com/achieving-450-mbs-network-file-transfers-using-linux-bonding.html

 

The main issue with this mode, like you mentioned, is that it only works with other linux computers.

[TODDLT]

So what, if any, of these are supported on Windows 10?

 

What about streaming to 3 or 4 different places at once and to differnt hardware?

 

Would any of this help if you were writing to and reading from the server at the same time (provided they are not on the same physical disk)?

 

Thanks again.

[TODDLT]

So what, if any, of these are supported on Windows 10?

 

What about streaming to 3 or 4 different places at once and to differnt hardware?

 

Would any of this help if you were writing to and reading from the server at the same time (provided they are not on the same physical disk)?

 

Thanks again.

 

Shameless bump for a little more assistance.  Thanks all.

[unevent]

So what, if any, of these are supported on Windows 10?

 

What about streaming to 3 or 4 different places at once and to differnt hardware?

 

Would any of this help if you were writing to and reading from the server at the same time (provided they are not on the same physical disk)?

 

Thanks again.

 

Shameless bump for a little more assistance.  Thanks all.

 

Bonding support in Windows 10?  Not anymore and when it was it was only in specific builds.  It is available in Windows server flavors, however.  Any bonding done on unRAID would be transparent to the network unless you did the VLAN approach that was linked.

 

From my experience with balance-rr and using a smart switch with trunking/port grouping I get 2Gb throughput and is the only mode I have found to do so.  All the other modes are link backup and load balancing, but only get single NIC speeds. I can get full gigabit transfers from Windows 10 (100-110MB/s, SSD to spinner) and 2Gb transfers from a Linux box also setup in balance-rr on a separate port group on same switch.  Comes in handy when you can transfer full bitrate blu-ray rips in three minutes or less.  That said I have not tried file transfers using two separate Windows gigabit clients to see if I can get 2Gb on the unRAID bond.

[TODDLT]

Bonding support in Windows 10?  Not anymore and when it was it was only in specific builds.  It is available in Windows server flavors, however.  Any bonding done on unRAID would be transparent to the network unless you did the VLAN approach that was linked.

 

From my experience with balance-rr and using a smart switch with trunking/port grouping I get 2Gb throughput and is the only mode I have found to do so.  All the other modes are link backup and load balancing, but only get single NIC speeds. I can get full gigabit transfers from Windows 10 (100-110MB/s, SSD to spinner) and 2Gb transfers from a Linux box also setup in balance-rr on a separate port group on same switch.  Comes in handy when you can transfer full bitrate blu-ray rips in three minutes or less.  That said I have not tried file transfers using two separate Windows gigabit clients to see if I can get 2Gb on the unRAID bond.

 

Mode 0 - balance-rr says it needs a "properly set up swtich" in the unRAID drop down.  I assume this is where you are saying "trunking / port grouping".

Since this is all new territory for me, is it usually in most "smart switches" or does it require a "managed switch?"

 

Here is the one that's coming for me tomorrow:  http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/cat-41_TL-SG108E.html

 

Thanks again all.

 

 

[TODDLT]

BUMP for help

[TODDLT]

Bonding support in Windows 10?  Not anymore and when it was it was only in specific builds.  It is available in Windows server flavors, however.  Any bonding done on unRAID would be transparent to the network unless you did the VLAN approach that was linked.

 

From my experience with balance-rr and using a smart switch with trunking/port grouping I get 2Gb throughput and is the only mode I have found to do so.  All the other modes are link backup and load balancing, but only get single NIC speeds. I can get full gigabit transfers from Windows 10 (100-110MB/s, SSD to spinner) and 2Gb transfers from a Linux box also setup in balance-rr on a separate port group on same switch.  Comes in handy when you can transfer full bitrate blu-ray rips in three minutes or less.  That said I have not tried file transfers using two separate Windows gigabit clients to see if I can get 2Gb on the unRAID bond.

 

Mode 0 - balance-rr says it needs a "properly set up swtich" in the unRAID drop down.  I assume this is where you are saying "trunking / port grouping".

Since this is all new territory for me, is it usually in most "smart switches" or does it require a "managed switch?"

 

Here is the one that's coming for me tomorrow:  http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/cat-41_TL-SG108E.html

 

Thanks again all.

 

The switch came in yesterday and setting up a trunk to two ports was pretty simple in the setup so that's done and I'm now in Mode 0 - balance rr.

 

However, I dont see much of any difference in transfer speeds off of a Windows 10 machine.  Most often there is a burst at the beginning where I will get 9X MB/Sec, but then shortly it drops usually sustaining about 47/48 MB/sec and will occasionally fall off that as well. 

 

I don't think you can write higher than 50 unless you have a cache drive, but I would have thought reading would sustain higher numbers. 

 

Is there any way to see that this is functioning correctly?

[JorgeB]

The only current way to get more than gigabit from a single transfer from windows to unRAID is by using 10GbE,  it may be possible in the near future when SAMBA improves SMB multichannel support.

[TODDLT]

The only current way to get more than gigabit from a single transfer from windows to unRAID is by using 10GbE,  it may be possible in the near future when SAMBA improves SMB multichannel support.

 

Understood, but with a gigabit network I should be able to stay in the 90-100 MB/sec range, correct?

[JorgeB]

The only current way to get more than gigabit from a single transfer from windows to unRAID is by using 10GbE,  it may be possible in the near future when SAMBA improves SMB multichannel support.

 

Understood, but with a gigabit network I should be able to stay in the 90-100 MB/sec range, correct?

Yes, using cache or turbo write.

[unevent]

It's ultimately up to the drive you are reading from and the drive you are writing to.  If you have SSD on both ends you should see higher numbers assuming cache and not array.  Transfer is as fast as the slowest drive and faster Ethernet is not going to change that.

[Crashdogy]

What shoul I set my bonded ethernet to in unraid if my switch is doing layer 2/3  Loadbalancing? 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Crashdogy