NAS, Link Aggregation, Managed switch

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Stu

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#280075 25-Nov-2020 10:51

I'm finally getting around to purchasing a NAS for home, after thinking about it for a few years.

At this time, we just want to have a common place to store files and photographs, so they can be accessed and edited over the network. There are probably other things I'll use the NAS for, once I get around to playing with Docker and VM capabilities, etc. I don't know yet because this is new to me.

To give me a little room to grow as needs require it, I'm looking at either a Synology 920+, Asustor AS6604T, or the QNAP TS-453D. Probably with only two or three 4TB drives installed for now.

So to the current dilemma: They all support Link Aggregation, but I'm not sure whether or not I would notice the difference? And if it is worth the trouble, would something like the TL-SG1016DE cover this task successfully? Will the switch also take over the router tasks of the FRITZ!Box 7490, and have the two 7490s here just handle WiFi Mesh duties?

Would I be better off just increasing the RAM in the NAS, and/or installing NVMe caching SSDs?

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers, and thanks.

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Networkn
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#2610306 25-Nov-2020 10:59

We have sold tons of the Synology. We have very few issues with them and warranty support has always been prompt when it was very occasionally required.

freitasm

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#2610310 25-Nov-2020 11:09

@michaelmurfy will know all about Link Aggregation on Synology NAS.

ShinyChrome

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#2610311 25-Nov-2020 11:11

Stu: They all support Link Aggregation, but I'm not sure whether or not I would notice the difference?

This actually raises a point of difference that I hadn't considered, as I am still vacillating between re-purposing my circa 2014 gaming PC as an unRAID server, or buying a NAS...

I suspect the answer is workload dependent (shuttling large files, or lots of medium ones, around the local network), but I will be interested to hear the feedback from this as well.

richms

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#2610315 25-Nov-2020 11:14

LAG isnt bonding, it will not help a single stream, but if you have multiple streams between the devices it means that some will go on one cable and some on the other. How well they split depends on the gear at each end. If you want higher speeds, get faster interfaces since LAGs will not make one file copy at 2 gigabits unless you have multiple TCP streams and the sending end is smart enough to send them over different cables even tho the destination mac address is the same, which is not a given.

Richard rich.ms

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#2610317 25-Nov-2020 11:17

I've been down this track with both Asustor & Synology NAS's.
Link aggregation (currently supported)
Is limited to 1client per socket) - so even if you have 4xlink aggregation - 1 PC is still limited to a single 1gb link.

The benefit of link aggregation in your instance only becomes a benefit, where you have 2-4 people all accessing the NAS (each will have their own 1GB link to use - rather than sharing a single 1gb link.

chevrolux

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#2610321 25-Nov-2020 11:24

Yep as everyone else has said, 802.3ad LAG's won't really give you much of a benefit in the home environment as you (probably) don't have enough multiple connections to make full use of it.

I would aim for something that has 10Gbps interface, get a 10-gig switch, and run your LAN off that - the Mikrotik Cloud Core Switches are a pretty great option.

concordnz

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#2610322 25-Nov-2020 11:24

Make sure you buy a NAS which can have a 10gb NIC added.

(that's the best strategy)

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cyril7

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#2610434 25-Nov-2020 12:37

richms:

LAG isnt bonding, it will not help a single stream, but if you have multiple streams between the devices it means that some will go on one cable and some on the other. How well they split depends on the gear at each end. If you want higher speeds, get faster interfaces since LAGs will not make one file copy at 2 gigabits unless you have multiple TCP streams and the sending end is smart enough to send them over different cables even tho the destination mac address is the same, which is not a given.

Just to add to this, I have successfully used LAGs on Syno's, but as others say all LAG tech will limit a stream to a single client via one link, the gain with LAGs is when you have many clients pulling traffic on the LAG.

As Richard says above there is also a limitation of MAC diversity that may also limit the LAGs ability to spread traffic across LAG members. To help overcome this you can change the hashing algorithm to include L3 and L4 elements which will dramatically help. If that is done you should consider doing the same on the managed switch so that it also is better equipped to distribute traffic over LAG members via L3 and L4 hash elements for traffic heading towards the Syno.

To change the hashing on the Syno, see my notes below:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0

change the BONDING_OPTS to read as below, ie add the xmit_hash_policy=layer3+4 after mode=4

BONDING_OPTS="mode=4 xmit_hash_policy=layer3+4 use_carrier=1 miimon=100 updelay=100 lacp_rate=fast"

As others have said, get 10G NICs if you really want to move traffic with speed.

Cyril

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#2610515 25-Nov-2020 13:41

richms:

LAG isnt bonding, it will not help a single stream, but if you have multiple streams between the devices it means that some will go on one cable and some on the other. How well they split depends on the gear at each end. If you want higher speeds, get faster interfaces since LAGs will not make one file copy at 2 gigabits unless you have multiple TCP streams and the sending end is smart enough to send them over different cables even tho the destination mac address is the same, which is not a given.

there's your answer.

LAG works at layer 2, between host pairs. host pairs are allocated a LAG member over which traffic between them is sent/received. it does not aggregate both/all LAG members for use between the same host pair.

even with multiple host pairs, you're still at the mercy of the the hashing algorithm in use, i.e. you might get lucky and end up with host-pairs on the same LAG member.

nitro

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#2610517 25-Nov-2020 13:43

cyril7:

Just to add to this, I have successfully used LAGs on Syno's, but as others say all LAG tech will limit a stream to a single client via one link, the gain with LAGs is when you have many clients pulling traffic on the LAG.

it also gives you interface redundancy... which isn't much of an issue for home scenarios either.

cyril7

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#2610520 25-Nov-2020 13:50

nitro:

richms:

LAG isnt bonding, it will not help a single stream, but if you have multiple streams between the devices it means that some will go on one cable and some on the other. How well they split depends on the gear at each end. If you want higher speeds, get faster interfaces since LAGs will not make one file copy at 2 gigabits unless you have multiple TCP streams and the sending end is smart enough to send them over different cables even tho the destination mac address is the same, which is not a given.

there's your answer.

LAG works at layer 2, between host pairs. host pairs are allocated a LAG member over which traffic between them is sent/received. it does not aggregate both/all LAG members for use between the same host pair.

even with multiple host pairs, you're still at the mercy of the the hashing algorithm in use, i.e. you might get lucky and end up with host-pairs on the same LAG member.

Hi see my notes above, you can add L3/4 elements to the hashing and LAG distribution will improve, this includes file transfer methods that utilise L4 (ie port defined) multiple streams, how well it works depends on a number of variables, however in theory protocols like SMB3 can achieve greater than a single GigE link over lags to a single client, however its not easy to realise in practice.

Cyril

nitro

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#2610530 25-Nov-2020 14:03

cyril7:

Hi see my notes above, you can add L3/4 elements to the hashing and LAG distribution will improve, this includes file transfer methods that utilise L4 (ie port defined) multiple streams, how well it works depends on a number of variables, however in theory protocols like SMB3 can achieve greater than a single GigE link over lags to a single client, however its not easy to realise in practice.

Cyril

not quite. the L3/4 elements (some switch chips even allow ethertype, port, vlan, etc.) that can be used for hashing are only to decide which single LAG member port that host pair is allocated to.

bignose

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#2610565 25-Nov-2020 14:39

Stu:

So to the current dilemma: They all support Link Aggregation, but I'm not sure whether or not I would notice the difference? And if it is worth the trouble, would something like the TL-SG1016DE cover this task successfully? Will the switch also take over the router tasks of the FRITZ!Box 7490, and have the two 7490s here just handle WiFi Mesh duties?

in general LAG won't give you any speed increase for a single client - but obviously will help with multiple clients

If you want faster single client access you either need a NAS with 10gbe/5gb/2.5gb ports (like the assustor 6604t or the QNAP 453d you meantion with 2.5gbe ports) and a matching NIC client side - or you can use smb multichannel on a NAS with mutiple 1gbe ports to get better speed to the single client (note that multichannel only went out of experimental status with samba 4.13 and most NAS vendors are back around 4.4 - so if you want multichannel to work reliably it'd mean rolling your own samba upgrade which is definitely living life on the edge)

bignose

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#2610573 25-Nov-2020 14:49

chevrolux:

I would aim for something that has 10Gbps interface, get a 10-gig switch, and run your LAN off that - the Mikrotik Cloud Core Switches are a pretty great option.

10gbe, whilst nice - is overkill for a cheap 4bay NAS like that, there's simply no way it'll saturate a 10gbe link (4 bays in raid5 will probably give sub 500megabytes/sec sustained r/w).

Maybe if you were stuffing the NAS with ssd's rather than hdds - but a lot of cheaper units run out of cpu grunt to push data at 10gbe rates even when running an all ssd array

802.3bz is cheaper at NAS end (two of the units the OP listed have dual 2.5gbe built in), and much cheaper at the switch (the $200 2.5gbe qnap switch is at least half the price of anything with at leadt 2 10gbe ports)

cyril7

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#2610584 25-Nov-2020 15:06

nitro:

cyril7:

Hi see my notes above, you can add L3/4 elements to the hashing and LAG distribution will improve, this includes file transfer methods that utilise L4 (ie port defined) multiple streams, how well it works depends on a number of variables, however in theory protocols like SMB3 can achieve greater than a single GigE link over lags to a single client, however its not easy to realise in practice.

Cyril

not quite. the L3/4 elements (some switch chips even allow ethertype, port, vlan, etc.) that can be used for hashing are only to decide which single LAG member port that host pair is allocated to.

Not quite, yes that is correct, however if you are using a multi stream transfer method (SMB3 for example) and L4 is included in the hashing you then have the ability for a file transfer to split that transfer across multiple lag members. Obviously this requires both the sender and receiver to have similar lag capability or one of them have a 10G NIC to realise the aggregated potential.

Cyril

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