Adaptive Load Balancing Synology <=> Mikrotik CRS226-24G-S2+

[mervincm]

Having had ZERO luck in implementing LACP between my Synology NAS and my Mikrotik 226 (or even between the Mikrotik and a Netgear switch) I was excited to see that the new Synology 5.2 beta included additional bonding modes, notably adaptive load balancing. The little I read about this mode indicated that it did not require configuration on the switch side, yet still could be used (in the right circumstances) to aggregate traffic over what a single gig link would handle.
Unfortunately, I got no further. No problem adding the four GBE NICs into a bonded channel, everything works as expected with a single patch cable connected, and all network connectivity is lost a few moments after I connect more than one.

Any hints??? I honestly don't know where to start with this.

 

[Biren78]

I thought there might be issues with this in the beta. I have no idea where to start but I'm following this with interest.

 

[mervincm]

I feel like a bit of a fool here. Based on feedback from Synology, I double checked my switch config, and sure enough I found that I still had the four ports configured as a trunk. totally missed it the first time I looked. They also suggested that I start with cables connected first (no idea why that would matter) anyway I did both, and this time created a port channel with 2 links, not four. Low and behold it seems to work. I was able to do two simultaneous loads (2 PCs) and it was able to nearly saturate both links at the same time.
I am going to leave it as is for a good while, make sure its stable, then see if I can clarify if it was the removal of the trunk definition, or the cabling order, or maybe the drop from 4 to two channels, that helped. will update this thread later.

 

[bds1904]

currently "LACP" or any kind of bonding on the CRS series of switches is pointless. All bonding currently goes through the switches CPU not through the switch chip leaving you with no more than 300Mbit of bandwidth. Note that's 300 megabits per second not 300 megabytes per second.

It is currently a limitation of the software the CRS runs. The hardware's switch chip is perfectly capable of LACP but the software hasn't had support written into it yet.

 

[mervincm]

Adaptive load balancing does not have switch configuration requirements, so it is an ideal candidate. So far it seems to be working. Also, it is not quite accurate to say that all bonding currently goes through the switch's weak CPU. According to Mikrotik support, LACP using only the switch-chip can work IF the other device does not require the messages that comprise the dynamic portion of the "dynamic LACP." That being said, I have tried a few devices, and I have had zero luck.

Mikrotik has been adding to their switch documentation here
Manual:CRS features - MikroTik Wiki
and examples here
Manual:CRS examples - MikroTik Wiki