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Help with NIC teaming for datastore

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AMD_Gamer

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Jan 20, 2002
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I read up on setting up NIC teaming but i have a few questions I am confused about. I am going to be connecting both of my ESXi hosts to my datastore over NFS and have NIC teaming setup between everything. I want to make sure i set everything up correctly. I am going to create the LAG groups on the switch, and put them in their own VLAN. Then setup nic teaming on each ESXi host and my Synology and attach each NIC to the LAG ports on the switch. It will look like the diagram I Have below.

Is this correct?

BHgr2.jpg


Now I am confused about how the vSwitch has NIC teaming setup by default but you have to to select it for the different Port Groups? From my understanding if you have multiple Port Groups on a vSwitch then you can decide which port group takes advanatge of the NIC teaming? if NIC teaming is not selected on one of the Port Groups it will only use one NIC in the group? I don't really understand how one of the Port Groups would not use the NIC teaming while another is?

Also how do you setup NIC teaming for the actual VM? do you have to add two network adapters to the VM and setup nic teaming? is that even possible?

My idea for this whole setup aside from redundant links is that when a host starts up you can use more bandwidth when multiple VM's are starting up from the datastore for a quicker boot up? This would also work if multiple VM's have share folders and people are downloading from them?
 
Still haven't bought a book, eh?

You connect physical NICs to vSwitches. On that vSwitch you can select the teaming config and method. In each port-group you can override the vSwitch and set active/standby/unused/hash-method manually for that port-group. That's why way you can segment traffic using the same NICs. For example....right now in my lab I have one vSwitch with two NICs. On my VM port-group I have NIC0 set as active, NIC1 as standby. On my VMkernel (NFS and vMotion) PG I have NIC0 as Standby and NIC1 as Active. That way they are separate but can failover for each other.

You don't set NIC teaming in a VM. You connect a VM to a port-group and the underlying configuration handles the teaming.

Keep in mind, NFS doesn't multiplath. So if you want to use two NIC's worth of bandwidth with NFS you create a datastore and share it over one NIC, then create a second datastore and share it over the other NIC. Match the configuration on your vSphere host. If you depend on NIC teaming you may be disappointed when the host and switch hashes both connections over a single link.
 
NetJunkie said:
You connect physical NICs to vSwitches. On that vSwitch you can select the teaming config and method. In each port-group you can override the vSwitch and set active/standby/unused/hash-method manually for that port-group. That's why way you can segment traffic using the same NICs. For example....right now in my lab I have one vSwitch with two NICs. On my VM port-group I have NIC0 set as active, NIC1 as standby. On my VMkernel (NFS and vMotion) PG I have NIC0 as Standby and NIC1 as Active. That way they are separate but can failover for each other.

You don't set NIC teaming in a VM. You connect a VM to a port-group and the underlying configuration handles the teaming.
Click to expand...

I think i see now. How come you don't have your NFS on a separate VLAN.
 
Because it's just a single switch. I could...but it wouldn't make any real difference in my lab. In a real deployment I always put NAS on a diff VLAN..and almost always on dedicated NICs. Which is why I just ordered 3 Intel PT Dual-port NICs. :)
 
AMD_Gamer said:
I think i see now. How come you don't have your NFS on a separate VLAN.
Click to expand...

Doesn't actually gain you much, that's why. Sure, you get broadcast separation, but you're still limited to the physical interconnect. Better to have it on it's own dedicated hardware if possible.
 
Thanks for the info guys this stuff just really confuses me. So basically I am just going to have the NIC teaming for failover.
 
This is one area where iSCSI is better..you can multipath it. But on a home NAS...meh.
 
NetJunkie is correct. Standard practice is to have the NAS on a seperate VLAN. For security, I/O efficiency, and multipathing you should have 2 switches on your SAN/NAS fabric.
 
In regards to dual port NIC's, I've used these dual port nics and haven't had any issues, and they are pretty cheap!
 
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You can score the Dell branded variant of those pretty cheap. The Intel branded ones @ 140 on Newegg, I got mine off Ebay for $40. Same exact thing, didn't even have any Dell stickers on it.

I'd stuff every PCI slot I ever ran across with them, they're good cards.
 
+1 for the dell branded nics. I recently bought 3 for $120 shipped. link
 
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