[ale] Network Performance Gurus - Question about Ubuntu based NAS

[Jim Kinney]

So far, all the switches I've seen that support 802.3ad ALSO have
management. There is a protocol in nic bonding that provides for automatic
switch detection of bonded lines but I have not used it.

The short answer is yes, you will need to manually setup which ports are the
bonded ports on the switch. However, there are bonding protocols that don't
require a special switch mode. Modes 5 and 6 don't require a switch with
802.3ad.

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>wrote:

> >From what I think I hearing / reading:
>
> The NAS could have 2 Gbit NICs connected to a switch and in turn that
> switch could be connected to a single NIC on a client machine.
>
> At that point the single NIC becomes the bottleneck, but if it is a
> good NIC it should be able to run faster than 60MB/sec.
>
> But if the PC has 2 NICs, they two could be connected in a bonded mode
> (ie 802.3ad) and possibly run even faster.
>
> ==> Question:  Then do all relatively new gigabit switches support
> 802.3ad bonding, or do I need to get a managed one, etc?
>
> If a managed one is required, do I have to manually setup the ports to
> do bonding, or is it automatic once it is enabled for the whole
> switch?
>
> Thanks
> Greg
>
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Network Guru,
> >
> > I've done lots of work with 100 Mbit, but not much performance testing
> > with 1Gbit/sec Ethernet.
> >
> > I'm looking at the QNAP TS509 NAS unit (reviewed at
> > http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30549/75/1/1/).
> >
> > It is running Ubuntu internally (customized I'm sure).
> >
> > Per the last page of the review, it shows max. read throughput at
> > about 56 MB/sec. (via what client?)
> >
> > But one gets the impression, that it is the Ethenet link that is
> > limiting the speed, not the disks/CPU.
> >
> > And from the post http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=492
> >
> > One reads that load balancing via LACL (802.3ad) allowed at least one
> > TS509 user to get 87 MB/sec with a single client workstation.
> >
> > And with two clients, the user is claiming 62 MB/sec per client
> simultaneously.
> >
> > == questions
> >
> > 1) With a single socket, does 1 Gigabit ethernet tend to max out at
> > only 60MB/sec or so?  Or is that more likely a limitation of a Windows
> > client PC?
> >
> > 2) If I get a LACL (802.3ad) compliant switch, do I just need 2 cat5
> > cables from it to my NAS and my client machines get accelerated via a
> > single gigabit connection?  Is the answer OS dependent?
> >
> > 3.1) In particular, I have a Fedora box I want to connect and get as
> > much throughput to/from the NAS as possible.  Will I also need to
> > implement load-balancing on it via LACL?
> >
> > 3.2) And what about XP?  Vista?
> >
> > 4) For my Fedora box, do any of the performance tests even mean
> > anything for this NAS, since they were testing via Windows clients.
> >
> > Thanks
> > --
> > Greg Freemyer
> > Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
> > First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
> >
> http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf
> >
> > The Norcross Group
> > The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
> > http://www.norcrossgroup.com
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Greg Freemyer
> Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
> First 99 Days Litigation White Paper -
> http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf
>
> The Norcross Group
> The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
> http://www.norcrossgroup.com
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
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