Realtek NIC Teaming Question

[DougWD]

I have a MB that has two Realtek NIC (1GB) and software that allows you to team the two chips together using a router or switch.

I have a router so I used that. It works, showing 2GB throughput. The reason I did this is because people are saying that it offers redundancy and thus you're less likely to slow down when downloading, playing games, etc.

In essence, if you're ISP gives you a maximum bandwidth downstream of 8000Mb/s and you normally can get only anywhere between 3-6000Mb/s, but teaming your cards you could closer to your maximum.

IS this true? If so I don't understand how that can be because everything is above the stack, and if a slowdown occurs while downloading a file, then it is a bottleneck above the stack.

So I assume, just using some simple logic that the only way this can be true is if it is like two different computers downloading the same file, and both are only getting 4000Mb/s. Thus, if both are getting that bandwidth, you could theoretically double the D/L speed because each connection would be downloading half the file.

That means that your ISP would have to be clean all the way through to its client, and the congestion would have to be above the ISP stack before you could see any benefit.

So can someone explain if I have the idea, or am I totally missing something?

 

[k1pp3r]

No it won't make your download faster.

Your 1 Gb LAN connection is a hell of a lot faster than your WAN connection.

NIC teaming really comes into play on servers, not desktop, for throughput and failover reasons

 

[IntelOwnz]

1Gb/s lan vs 8Mb/s wan

even 10Mb/s lan would be faster then your maximum wan access lol


plus you say your download bandwidth is "8000Mb/s" when I think you actually mean 8Megabits per second, not 8000Megabits lol

 

[keenan]

Also, unless your router or switch specifically supports it, it's going to do absolutely nothing for your download speeds anyway since the return traffic will all be to one port, or worse, it won't know how to deal with the same MAC on two ports at once and will do some fapping around.

As has already been mentioned, trunking links like this is mostly used for switch->switch and heavy server traffic and high availability purposes. You need the proper gear to support it (and Realtek NICs are about as far as you can get from 'proper') on both sides of the link, and you should understand the limitations because the way it works makes it mostly useless in a home setting.

 

[fantasticdan]

I'd be interested in what router you're using that supports LACP. I assume that's what you're configuring.

Any servers I've done NIC teaming with have always been LACP and I've not seen a home router that supports it, so i'm just interested.

 

[DougWD]

LOl yeah I wish I had 8000Mb/s download speed.

OK so what I was not understanding is because it doesn't do anything for making downloads achieve my theoretical maximum more so than only using one NIC.

So is there ANY reason or benefit from teaming like I have it, other than LAN transfer speeds between computers where there is more than 1Gb/s bandwidth?

Thanks for your replies.

 

[keenan]

So is there ANY reason or benefit from teaming like I have it, other than LAN transfer speeds between computers where there is more than 1Gb/s bandwidth?

Unless your router specifically supports LACP or some other teaming/trunking/aggregation scheme all it can do is break things to set it up like this, and I think it's fairly likely to cause you problems, especially with those awful Realtek NICs.

 

[just2cool]

LOl yeah I wish I had 8000Mb/s download speed.

Haha, I've got my share of OC-48s to clearly shatter that rate. Although, all desktop ports are set to 100/full, and my lab WAN traffic is policed to 450Mb/sec.. so I never really see all that bandwidth. I'm obviously talking about work, not my apartment... yet

Unless your router specifically supports LACP or some other teaming/trunking/aggregation scheme all it can do is break things to set it up like this, and I think it's fairly likely to cause you problems, especially with those awful Realtek NICs.

Yeah, could be LACP... but a static port channel on both sides would work too. LACP just buys you dynamic config possibilities and somewhat elevated stability/checking. Don't wish to elaborate on the latter as it was quite a long discussion before.

Also, if you set static on the server end, and nothing on the switch/router side, it will still kind of work. However, since MACs are learned on a source basis, the MAC from your port channel will be flapping between both ports on the switch/router and could do some damage, like drive the CPU utilization high or drop packets, depending on how crappy the hardware is. What I'm trying to say is, don't do it.

 

[InvisiBill]

So is there ANY reason or benefit from teaming like I have it, other than LAN transfer speeds between computers where there is more than 1Gb/s bandwidth?

Assuming everything supports it and works properly, it will only give you an extra 1Gb/s link to make additional connections on. This is only useful if you've already got your first 1Gb/s link maxed out, and want to split the load of multiple connections over two links. It doesn't give you a single 2Gb/s link, just two 1Gb/s links. It won't help for a single connection that's maxing out, other than allowing other connections to use the extra 1Gb/s link so as not to interfere with the first connection on the maxed out link.

For most home users, it will do nothing at all other than making things more complicated and possibly even adding delay for the processing involved with the teaming.

 

[DougWD]

OK thanks much for all that clarification. That's pretty much what I thought too. I knew it would help a wan connection if the NIC bandwidth was maxed out, but had no idea how it would improve LAN speed.

BTW the router I'm using is the Linksys WRT610N.

 

[IntelOwnz]

OK thanks much for all that clarification. That's pretty much what I thought to. I new it would help a wan connection if the NIC bandwidth was maxed out, but had no idea how it would improve LAN speed.

BTW the router I'm using is the Linksys WRT610N.

lolwut
unless your "wan" (i take this to mean your internet connection, the way you use the term) is a fibre/oc3 connection you're not moving faster then 100Mb/s.. even 1x Gigabit NIC has more bandwidth then your internet connection