ZyXEL NAS540 Network Attached Storage

[Luxliev]

Hello! I don't know anything about NAS. I have 2 LAN cables. Should I connect both of them to router or is second cable used for connecting another NAS or something else.

 

[boosted1g]

You should only have 1 connection to the router.

Let me lookup your device and see why there is 2 ports/cables.

 

[Luxliev]

Thanks for your time. Device is ZyXEL NAS540 and yes it came with 2 LAN cables and it has 2 LAN ports.

I found something like this in options


Is second LAN used as Gateway?

 

[reedo_43]

my guess the 2nd port would be used for "stacking" or adding a 2nd unit to the first.

 

[Solandri]

The two LAN ports are for link aggregation. If your computer (usually a server) has link aggregation (also takes 2 LAN cables) and your NAS has link aggregation, they can transmit data over both network interfaces simultaneously, essentially giving you 2x the speed of your network. e.g. If your LAN is gigabit ethernet, or 1 Gbps, 2x link aggregation will allow you to transmit files at 2 Gbps.

The technology was made when HDDs first started exceeding 100 MB/s. But is a bit lackluster now that SSDs have blown past 500 MB/s. I think most people who need this stuff are looking towards 10 Gbps, either optical or ethernet.

If you don't have any other devices on your LAN with link aggregation, you only need to plug in one cable.

Is second LAN used as Gateway?

Link aggregation can also be used for redundancy. i.e. instead of having a single LAN, you have two LANs, each with their own IP address range and gateway. Devices with link aggregation connect to both LANs simultaneously and can transmit data over both networks simultaneously for 2 Gbps. But if one LAN should go down (say you have to shut down its main router for a firmware upgrade), they can continue communicating on the other LAN.

Basically it's like RAID-1 for LANs. You can perform maintenance on the network or suffer equipment failure without all your computers (with link aggregation) losing network connectivity.

 

[Luxliev]

That's really interesting tech thanks for explaining it.