Link Aggregation at home for PLEX, 4K live editing, etc.

[kilofensky]

Getting started with seriously revamping my home network including new copper drops and so on.

For the purposes of this question I will keep the complexity of the in place network to a minimum. The goal is to allow my PLEX storage to sit on the same array as my remote 4K swap space without being bottlenecked by the 1 Gbps link. That array is 10TB all SSD raid 10 and is plenty robust to accommodate saturation of over a 4Gbps link for reference.

Since I'm running copper to a few places I want to at least pair the drops and aggregate them. I can live with the ~1.5 min it takes to transfer 10GB from my editing PC to the array however when my boyfriend fires up his gaming PC on the same drop and starts streaming that drops to ~5min for the same 10GB which is unacceptable. The reasoning for aggregation is so I get even faster speeds when he isn't streaming and I'm still good when he is.

I am willing to upgrade any and all switch gear but would prefer to keep the Asus RT-AC5300 I currently have as the reconfiguration of the other smart home apps and servers would need to be done as well if replaced. I am willing to do so if absolutely necessary but it does claim to be capable of aggregation.

My questions are simple, what switch gear does everyone recommend, I will need 2 minimum one with at least 18 ports and 1+ with at least 5?
What is the recommended pcie network card supporting aggregation of at least 2 cables?
Budget is flexible and while not unlimited I would prefer if it could be done under 3k.

Thank you for any input you may have.

I should clarify the reason for mentioning the router, I have a full 1 gbps connection, I can pull 920mbps sustained to my desk in aggregation testing and only 730mbps without, borrowed equip from work to test.

 

[bill001g]

The main problem with link aggregation is is does not actually combine the links for a single session. On top of that it is really stupid it mathematically picks a link without any concern for utilization. You could end up with all your traffic on a single link and nothing on the other.

What it was really designed for was a central server that was serving data a lot of machines. The randomness of all the session should more or less balance. When you have few machines or single large transfers it does not work so well.

Because of these limitations and the cost of 10g card dropping so much enterprise customers have move to 10g ports....although they sometime use link aggregation of 10g ports for a high speed failover in case of a switch failure.

If you really want to do link aggregation you will first need switches that support it. If you have multiple switches all must support it and you have to be very careful to configure it correctly. It is really easy to get data loops since you now have multiple paths between switches.

Make sure you run cat6a cable if you are going to use 10g ports. It technically will work on normal cat6 for short distance (ie 50m) you find in a home installation but it is not officially approved...but everyone knows it works. There is not a huge difference in price between cat6 and cat6a cable lately anyway.

 

[nigelivey]

With that budget you could move to 5Gig or 10Gig.

 

[kilofensky]

The main problem with link aggregation is is does not actually combine the links for a single session. On top of that it is really stupid it mathematically picks a link without any concern for utilization. You could end up with all your traffic on a single link and nothing on the other.

What it was really designed for was a central server that was serving data a lot of machines. The randomness of all the session should more or less balance. When you have few machines or single large transfers it does not work so well.

Because of these limitations and the cost of 10g card dropping so much enterprise customers have move to 10g ports....although they sometime use link aggregation of 10g ports for a high speed failover in case of a switch failure.

If you really want to do link aggregation you will first need switches that support it. If you have multiple switches all must support it and you have to be very careful to configure it correctly. It is really easy to get data loops since you now have multiple paths between switches.

Make sure you run cat6a cable if you are going to use 10g ports. It technically will work on normal cat6 for short distance (ie 50m) you find in a home installation but it is not officially approved...but everyone knows it works. There is not a huge difference in price between cat6 and cat6a cable lately anyway.

While testing with work hardware, with our network engineer, it most certainly provided noticeable gains whatever it was. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what he brought over. I'll speak with him when he returns from vacation.
In the interim if you don't mind what hardware would you recommend if I were to go 10gbe? I havn't purchased anything yet so as long as it works lol

Thank you for your time.

 

[bill001g]

Although it can have a couple of option the method it chooses a path is based on the ip addresses and the port numbers. If you open a single file transfer the ip and port numbers do not change so all traffic take a single path. Now if your machine has the ability to open multiple parallel data streams then it might use both. In effect it adds the ip address and port numbers up and if it gets a even number it chooses path 1 and if it gets a odd number it chooses path 2.

The only 10g equipment I have used is commercial stuff. Many of the vendors like linksys offer consumer stuff with 10g ports that has impressive throughput numbers. It is important to look at the total throughput the device can handle but like 1g device they are starting to all be non blocking delaying. They can run all ports at 10g up and 10g down at the same time.

You can get 10g port integrated into the mother boards but I suspect any of the better known nic cards should perform well. I know the ones we put in HP servers had intel chips on them....but they had HP price tags on them.