Question Easy port aggregation ?

[Bo Lee]

my new mini pc has 2 2,5gb ethernet ports. i have a 300mb fiber internet n averages 400nb on speed tests. i know it is possible with link aggregation to basically get both ports getting that speed and effectively doubling your bandwidth. is there a unit i can get two plug in two ethernet lines and have a single aggregated output? or is there some way to aggregate then on the pc end? the ethernet port are realtek gaming 2.5gbe family controllers. i saw an app called speedify that will do it, but it is a subscription service service it seems there would be a diplexer like device with 2 in 1 out that can combine the signals. maybe a managed switch can do it?

 

[kanewolf]

my new mini pc has 2 2,5gb ethernet ports. i have a 300mb fiber internet n averages 400nb on speed tests. i know it is possible with link aggregation to basically get both ports getting that speed and effectively doubling your bandwidth. is there a unit i can get two plug in two ethernet lines and have a single aggregated output? or is there some way to aggregate then on the pc end? the ethernet port are realtek gaming 2.5gbe family controllers. i saw an app called speedify that will do it, but it is a subscription service service it seems there would be a diplexer like device with 2 in 1 out that can combine the signals. maybe a managed switch can do it?

Your 2.5GE already exceeds your internet speed by 8X. Link aggregation won't change your internet speed. Even in you had a 10GE NAS on your LAN, you wouldn't get double the speed. Why? Because most link aggregation implementations only work with multiple simultaneous transactions. A single file transfer would be limited to 2.5gigabit.
You will get ZERO benefit from link aggregation and you have a high probability of messing up your network. Leave it as-is.

 

[cruisetung]

Simple answer: No. You can't

And what is this "nb" in 400nb??

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Also as suggested, your port speed already exceed your subscription speed, why do you need to aggregate 2 ports?

 

[evermorex76]

Man that Speedify service looks ridiculous.

And what is this "nb" in 400nb??

M and N are right next to each other on most keyboards, so, obviously a typo.

I think OP believes they could get the ISP to provide double the total throughput over the fiber simply by having two connections on the LAN side of the gateway, like if two different PCs were plugged in they would both get 400Mbps. OP doesn't seem to understand that 400Mbps is the total speed being provided by the ISP and has to be shared amongst all the ports on the router; it's not a matter of them only permitting that much speed to each port.

If the ISP's service was over 1Gbps, and the gateway's LAN ports were only 1Gb or the PC's ports were only 1Gb, then aggregating two ports would be at least a potential option to get closer to full usage of the bandwidth on a single PC, but it would not be a perfect balance and individual transfers would not get over 1Gb. NIC teaming is possible in Windows and other OSes, but it's not officially supported in Windows client versions (it used to be). Teaming/aggregating is possible even if the switch/router on the other side doesn't support it, but it works by having the OS make completely separate connections over each link and "manually" managing them rather than having it happen at the network level so it's not as efficient or effective.

 

[Bo Lee]

Simple answer: No. You can't

And what is this "nb" in 400nb??

==

Also as suggested, your port speed already exceed your subscription speed, why do you need to aggregate 2 ports?

the nb is a typo for gb. As for why. why not? there ia no reason not to try. same reason i have 96gb of ram i will never come close to using. just for the sake of being able to say i have it.

 

[Bo Lee]

Your 2.5GE already exceeds your internet speed by 8X.

i am not suggesting i can max out one of the 2,5gb adapters, let along exceed it. just that they can handle a lot more speed than what i have to them.

 

[evermorex76]

actually op has run bndwidth test on mine and my wife's pc at the samw tim ans both gotten 300mbs in the test

Not if you're only paying your ISP for 300Mbps. (The do commonly give a bit more, so 400 is believable. My 500 service gets over 600.) If you could actually get a total of 600Mbps by running the test on two PCs at the same time, then your single PC could get 600Mbps by itself since your PC's network connection can easily handle that. ISPs don't hand out extra bandwidth just because it's on a different router port. The speed is rate limited on the ISP's side going to the WAN interface on the router. Speed test sites are not a truly valid way to test this. You need to watch the WAN speed on the router's web interface itself (if it's available) or run the speed test on the router (if available). Or find a very large download that is able to max out the speed on one machine (like a Linux ISO) and then try downloading that on both machines at the same time. Even that may not be completely accurate, because the browser's indicator of the download speed isn't continuous so they could both be indicating a high speed but they're just averages over a certain period of time, and both aren't getting that high speed at exactly the same moment.

 

[cruisetung]

Link aggregation only works if you can control both ends of the network, sending and receiving side.

Like if you have a PC with 2 gigabits ports connected to your own NAS that also has 2 gigabits ports under your own control.

You are only an end user for your ISP. Even if you have 2 accounts and 2 lines, they will not bond the bandwidth for you.

There is a bandwidth bonding technology call SpeedFusion, but it also works only if both ends uses same router products from Peplink, and usually works only between branch offices.

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As suggested by others already, if one port / pipe is big enough, the other one will never be used.

 

[bill001g]

It will only be in your imagination that it will be faster. It will still only use 1 of the connection and basically leave the other unused.

The reason it does this is shown with this example. Say I have a file transfer open between 2 machines. I now have a string of packets. The first one is 1500 bytes long. And the next have 10 that are 150 bytes long. So packet 1 comes along and is send on link 1. When packet 2-11 come along link 1 is busy so it sends them on link 2. All sounds good and you feel you now have send 2 times the data. Problem is the receiving machine gets packet 2,3,4,5.... and thinks packet 1 was lost. It will send a request to retransmit packet 1 which many times can happen even before the first packet is done being transmitted. You now have multiple duplicate packets both confusing stuff and using more total bandwidth. If the receiving machine get too many out of order packets it will just close the session completely.

To avoid this issue data from a single session is always send on the same link. Since a switch is even simpler and has no concept of session it will send all data between 2 mac addresses on the same link.

The only way this would really work is if there was a fancy machine that would take all the data and chop it up at the bit level send it on both connection and then reassemble it back into the packets on the far side. These devices exist but they are far outside what a home user can afford...and you must have one of these expensive devices on both sides of the connection. They used to be used when you could not get really fast internet connections and were used between offices in businesses.

 

[faalin]

There are multiple things in play here,

ISP 300mb your getting 400mb, be lucky your getting that. Most small print on contracts state you will get up to 300mb, getting over is a bonus.

Next the ports on the router are probably on 1Gb ports, ISP's are cheap and if your bought internet speed is not fast enough to go over 1Gb speeds they aren't going to provide equipment to do those higher speeds.

Now your computer has 2 2.5Gb, using 1port it is 2.5x faster then the port on the router, and 8x faster then the speed your ISP is providing.

You're only going to be as fast as the slowest part in your configuration, which right now would be your ISP. If you're wanting faster internet you would have to call your ISP and buy the next fastest interent service. If your wanting a faster local network between multiple computers or storage devices, then all network ports would have to meet or exceide 2.5Gb. But then we would have to get into read and write speeds of said storage devices.

Lastly, both the computer and the switch need to be configured for link aggregation, using a compatible protocol like LACP (link aggregation control protocol), for the benefits of link aggregation to be realized. I will go out on a limb and say that a residential router is not going to have LACP on it.