Ok I have looked around for an answer for this question but have not found one that seems correct. Can you have more than one NIC in an UnRAID system? Is this advisable to do? Can it load balance traffic or could one docker use that card vise the other? I am just curious since I have one GiG Nic on the system now and I am running Plex for now but would like to add more apps without it taking away from the media streaming. I would like to know if it is a good idea to have more than one NIC in the system or will the system go nuts?

 

Thanks

 

Greg

• You can have more than one NIC in an unRAID system. (I have two)
• Depends on what it will be used for
• it can load balance traffic (LACP, stripping, etc) but will depend on your NIC and switch
• unRAID can use multiple NICs itself, but having multiple IPs on the same subnet is never a good idea.
• Docker can use multiple NICs, but major network changes will need to go in to properly isolate docker traffic to single NIC interfaces, possibly breaking LAN discovery and the like
• VMs can also be setup to use a specific port and still work as usual

For your use case, it is very much possible.

1 minute ago, ken-ji said:

• You can have more than one NIC in an unRAID system. (I have two)
• Depends on what it will be used for
• it can load balance traffic (LACP, stripping, etc) but will depend on your NIC and switch
• unRAID can use multiple NICs itself, but having multiple IPs on the same subnet is never a good idea.
• Docker can use multiple NICs, but major network changes will need to go in to properly isolate docker traffic to single NIC interfaces, possibly breaking LAN discovery and the like
• VMs can also be setup to use a specific port and still work as usual

For your use case, it is very much possible.

Thanks for information, I saw in the configures you can link the NIC too but I was not 100% sure on using that. I would think it is ok to use two IP addresses connected to a managed switch would do ok. It would assume it is two different systems on the same network. Humm may have to really think this through I just beefed up my system with a new mother board, CPU, and memory got it all working smooth now. I hate to throw a wrench in the works at this point. Thanks again.

What most systems, including unRAID by default, fail when you have two or more IP is that the responses usually go out using the first IP and the nic assigned to it. Of course bonding and bridging eliminate the second issue.

Hopefully this isn't a thread jack as I have a somewhat similar situation.

I currently have both onboard NICs bonded going to a managed switch via LACP.

I also have a 4 port intel NIC that I would like to utilize if it can provide me with some sort of benefit.

The main question would be, would isolating plex to its own port free up the bonded connection and allow less overhead on the bonded connection? Therefore giving some benefit to moving plex to a dedicated NIC port?

Plex is running in a docker in this case.

A good example of a heavy network usage time would be say multiple plex streams which transferring data to a backup server. Would putting plex on a deticated port help in this situation?

Edited December 21, 20187 yr by bnevets27

My test server has a total of seven NICs.

It is configured as a 4 interfaces bonded LACP channel to my switch and the rest of my network.

I use VLANs on this bonded channel to isolate Docker and VM traffic in their own network.

I have a dedicated 10G interface between this server and my main server to do high speed file transfers.

 

A word of caution: your switch(es) and router need to be capable too to support such extensive network solutions.

And network knowledge is necessary too...

5 hours ago, bnevets27 said:

Hopefully this isn't a thread jack as I have a somewhat similar situation.

I currently have both onboard NICs bonded going to a managed switch via LADP.

I also have a 4 port intel NIC that I would like to utilize if it can provide me with some sort of benefit.

The main question would be, would isolating plex to its own port free up the bonded connection and allow less overhead on the bonded connection? Therefore giving some benefit to moving plex to a dedicated NIC port?

Plex is running in a docker in this case.

A good example of a heavy network usage time would be say multiple plex streams which transferring data to a backup server. Would putting plex on a deticated port help in this situation?

Hmm. you'll need to setup like this (Mine is like this):

* br0 (eth0) - unRAID (VLAN 1) - one and only VM on this port as well.

* br1 (eth1) - Dockers (VLAN 1 - custom network) + (br1.3) Dockers (VLAN 2)

 

The only real benefit you'll get be adding the 4port NIC is to be able to serve a lot of clients better as LACP only improves bandwidth when talking to a lot of clients, and does not allow a single client to go faster than a single cable (1Gbps), so if you many plex clients and your server can handle all the streams easily, you can add the 4 port and make a LACP bridge out of that and migrate the docker network to it.

 

This means you'll be using plex with its own IP on the custom network (br0) and is known to generate call traces for no reason - depending on the hardware.

I was thinking about doing 2 network cards in my unRAID box too and having 2 network cables going into my switch on the network.

 

My thinking about this is that if I am using the full speed of 1 network card to download renders etc other users on my network can still get access to/retrieve files over the other connection.

 

Would that work?