Hey guys,

 

I have two Gigabit ethernet ports on my Supermicro motherboard but never bothered to use the 2nd one as I had no spare wired ports on my switch.  I just upgraded my switch and now have a spare port so my question to the guru's is should I bother attempting to bond the two ports...?  If yes can someone link me to instructions on how to set it up correctly.

Do you need more than 110 MB/s of bandwidth to multiple clients at the same time? If so, then yes. Specific instructions how to do it: vary by switch maker/model.

 

If you don't need that type of bandwidth (and most likely you do not,) set it up as active-backup in unRaid, plug in the cable, and feel content that in the unlikely event that your main port dies, you connection should stay active.

Well for the normal media streaming stuff one connection has been fine but I do have a Windows 10 VM running Blue Iris NVR software which has 8 3MP camera's attached as well as streaming those camera's out to 3-4 Imperihome clients.  That all creates a significant amount of network traffic which seems to be pushing the limits of the single connection. 

You asked if you should bother? IMHO No, don't bother with bonding. Little payout if it works, potential for lots of headaches and hours wasted. There is a better approach for what you're trying to do. 

 

You'd be better served by isolating those 8 cameras on their own network or vlan and adding eth1 passed thru to your Windows VM running Blue Iris. That'll give you the performance back on eth0 that you were interested in AND give you security that those camera's are isolated from everything else. Doesn't matter what brand camera you have, best to just treat them all as suspect.

I agree with Lev, it's not worth the hassle. If you have a good gigabit network switch, then that should be more than capable of handling the traffic your NVR can throw at it, I think you should be fine.