802.3ad LAG Switches - Will I benefit from one & what is a good quiet one?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › 802.3ad LAG Switches - Will I benefit from one & what is a good quiet one?

CrazyFlipper

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#143141 4-Apr-2014 13:28

Greetings all

I'm getting some CAT6 cables run next week and will need a switch (currently favour the Netgear GS116).

I am also looking at either a Synology DS412+ or DS1513+ NAS (the later provides for greater capacity, but of course comes at a higher price); both which support LAG. The Netgear GS116 I favour doesn't support LAG, however the Netgear GS716T v2 does.

I am already using a Netgear modem/router, a Netgear wi-fi extender and 2xNetgear Powerline AV500 adapters, hence why I've looked at Netgear switches. And no I am in no way affiliated with Netgear; I have just taking a liking the their products after previously having D-Link stuff.

Q1. Will I benefit from a LAG Switch?

The NAS will service 2 x Sony Blu-ray players (or Panasonic TV's) in two separate rooms and may be a WD TV Live in a third room (all connected by CAT6 back to the switch). Movies will be ripped to either .mkv or .m2ts format for backup and streaming.

All 3 units may access the NAS at the same time, but not that regularly (occasional wet weekend may be). But when they do, I don't want stuttering or degraded picture sound, etc.

Q2. Are there any quiet LAG Switches?

I have read reviews of the Netgear GS716T v2 and aren't too keen on the apparent noise the 40mm cooling fan makes. I have also seen some after-market modifications, but would rather get something that does the job well and quietly.

So if I would benefit from a LAG switch for my set up, what good and quiet ones are there? Need 12 ports minimum, with 16 ports allowing for future network expansion. Doesn't have to be a Netgear one either.

Thanks for your help.

cr250bromo

222 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 81

#1018518 4-Apr-2014 13:58

I'd be surprised if the NAS or your clients connecting to it could completely fill a gigabit link so probably no benefit IMHO. 100mbit is plenty for streaming bluerays over. If you have multiple clients reading/writing large files I suspect the limitation of the hard drives would slow you down long before the link was full.

If you're going to get the NAS anyway you could test to see if it can saturate a gigabit link, then buy a switch with LACP if needed.

/ben

chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2638
Inactive user

#1018523 4-Apr-2014 14:09

The thing that LACP helps with the most is multiple connections to the NAS. Remember at the end of the day you still will only have a single 1Gbps link to your PC/device. But if you have a handful of devices all pounding the link to the NAS at once then that is when LACP will help.

I wouldn't buy a switch simply because it supports LACP - any decent layer 2 switch will support that. Buy one that suits the situation. I personally really like HP or Allied Telesis. HP is probably slightly quieter than AT but don't know if you could class them as 'quiet'. Maybe a LevelOne switch. They are fairly quiet and make some quite good layer 2 gear.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 131

#1018880 5-Apr-2014 08:16

chevrolux: But if you have a handful of devices all pounding the link to the NAS at once then that is when LACP will help.

May help. It depends on the load balancing scheme plus some luck. With the small number of devices on a home network it won't be a very even distribution.

Do some basic maths though. Even at 200Mbit/s a video stream would require 90GB/hour video files. You just don't need 2Gbit/s on a home network for streaming video.

CrazyFlipper

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1019371 6-Apr-2014 09:53

Thanks for all the replies.

It would appear that I am not going to benefit from the added expense of getting a LAG switch. Which is what I suspected, but wanted to make sure.

So I'm going to start off with the Netgear GS116 and if I find that I am maxing it out on a regular occurrence (unlikely at this stage) then I'll look at a either a LAG or layer 2 switch.

Thanks again.