Link Aggregation

[usafbran]

Ok let me give a few facts before asking the question.

1. The Dual Gigabit ethernet on the motherboard supports 802.3ad.
2. The Intel EXPI9404PTL 4 x Gigabit RJ45 supports 802.3ad.
3. The D-Link DGS 1248T 48 Port Switch supports LACP.

Can I take the dual gigabit and the quad gigabit, link them together and have 6 channels? Or am i limited to only 2 or 4?

I've seen plenty of articles about link aggregation but none that specifically refer to linking a quad NIC with the dual on-board NIC.

[usafbran]

Nobody know? The documentation i've read would lead me to believe that you cannot use them together and you must have cards with the same manufacturer - I just want to know if someone knows something I don't.

[Tamarin]

My experience with teaming, at least in a windows environment, is that you must have the same vendor as a minimum, as the vendor driver supports/facilitates teaming. You could create a multiple NIC Intel Team, their driver allows this quite easily. But I know Intel's driver doesn't let one team with another brand of nic.

Best of luck,
Tamarin

[Britgeezer]

Ok let me give a few facts before asking the question.

1. The Dual Gigabit ethernet on the motherboard supports 802.3ad.
2. The Intel EXPI9404PTL 4 x Gigabit RJ45 supports 802.3ad.
3. The D-Link DGS 1248T 48 Port Switch supports LACP.

Can I take the dual gigabit and the quad gigabit, link them together and have 6 channels? Or am i limited to only 2 or 4?

I've seen plenty of articles about link aggregation but none that specifically refer to linking a quad NIC with the dual on-board NIC.

Would you mind linking me to any articles on the Dual NIC and Link Aggregation? I have one PC on my LAN that has two cables from a Gigabit switch to an on-board Gigabit Dual NIC MB - They are given fixed IP's and both work - but I've no idea how to bridge them.

[thiggins]

Not comprehensive, but an example:
How To Set Up Server NIC Teaming (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30575/53/)
How To Set Up Switch Link Aggregation (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30556/53/)

[Dennis Wood]

Make sure your switch supports 802.3ad specifically. We tested 4 switches (including the DlInk 16 port which supports "trunking") and the only ones I'd recommend right now are the Procurve and Netgear GS108T.

In your example, my best guess is that the switch/OS will have an issue with the 2nd "channel" meaning I'd just use the Intel NIC and set up 4 port LACP on the switch. The 802.3ad implementation seems to have vendor specific variations meaning it may not work as you'd expect. Also, if the host box cannot sustain over 120MB/s reads/writes to the disk, there's no point in setting up multiple channels to the disk array.

Brit, if both NICS have seperate IP addresses then they are not using 802.3ad. The LACP function is provided (or not) by the NIC vendor's drivers if you're in the windows environment...so the dual NICs should show up as one LAN connection with a single IP.