Networking ? - Dual LAN, SFP+

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Gadgetguru

Member
Dec 17, 2018
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Is there any benefit to having/using dual LAN on a home server?

- I have a Netgear Nighthawk X10 R900 router which offers ethernet port aggregation. The motherboard is an SM X8DTi-F with dual-port Giga-bit LAN. If I can utilize the port aggregation, how is it configured? BIOS? Within Windows Server?

The server, 2x PCs, and a 4k TV are hardwired to the router. Everything else is wireless.

- The router also has a 10G LAN SFP+ port. I'm not using a switch so is there any benefit or use for this?

Thank you!
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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You're never going to get more than 1Gb out of a single connection on each wire (and in most situations this'll rarely be maxed out). In a home situation where you've got a single server, a single switch and a single client it's generally of limited utility as far as redundancy goes... but if you've got two clients accessing the server simultaneously you can theoretically consume 2Gb/s of bandwidth instead of just one. There's overhead and caveats to that of course.

Simpler still from the bandwidth perspective would be to use the single 10Gb port, although that would entail buying a 10Gb NIC for your server with the associated power and hardware cost.

Configuring the bond will depend on the OS; windows server 2016 and up support it out-of-the-box (called "teaming" there), prior versions need a vendor-specific driver AFAIK, linux has had bonding support since the year dot.
 
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Pete.S.

Member
Feb 6, 2019
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You'll have to configure it on the server AND on the switch (or router in your case) for the ports where you plug in the server. Usually it's called LAG or LACP or something like that but maybe it's called something else on your router.

Supermicro almost exclusively use Intel NICs. You can find Intels drivers for your motherboard here:
Downloads for Intel® 82576 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
 
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