Daisychain the Pro 6

thanks for the answers.

as far as the OP, is a 2nd NIC possible or is it a laptop?

5 port 10/100 switch powered by USB (off the back of the NAS) ~ $25 -> http://www.zunidigital.com/?page_id=182

Or just search USB NIC on Amazon, ~ $9 and up. You could connect each NAS to a separate NIC using static IP's.

Of course Netgear makes a nice 5 port gigabit switch with external power -> http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/unmanaged/GS105.aspx#tab-techspecs (they also have the 'home' version, the GS605) but I prefer the design of the GS105.

All would work, switch would be preferable.

Equinox wrote:
A-ah! itsjasper.... if you band the two ethernet links, as you're suggesting, and connect them to the same switch, you will still have a 1gbps upload :-) And a mess on the buffers at the switch level ;)

Absolutely incorrect, you should read up on the different NIC bonding modes of the NAS.

(Of course without multiple clients you'd not crack 1gbps, and I assume your setup would be a single client?)

StephenB wrote:
My advice is to ignore the extra ethernet connection on the RN104. The platform isn't capable of generating/consuming more than one 1 gpbs anyway, so bonding isn't worth the trouble.

OP and subject refers to the Pro 6, though his profile does indeed state RN104.

ahpsi wrote:

5 port 10/100 switch powered by USB (off the back of the NAS) ~ $25 -> http://www.zunidigital.com/?page_id=182 Or just search USB NIC on Amazon, ~ $9 and up. You could connect each NAS to a separate NIC using static IP's. Of course Netgear makes a nice 5 port gigabit switch with external power -> http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/unmanaged/GS105.aspx#tab-techspecs (they also have the 'home' version, the GS605) but I prefer the design of the GS105. All would work, switch would be preferable.

Just wanted to add that if you want to play with bonding you'd be better off with a managed or "semi-managed" switch, since they have the ability to configure LACP in the switch. For instance the prosafe-plus line from Netgear. The GS105E datasheet claims support for trunking (though it doesn't explicitly say LACP).

itsjasper wrote:
StephenB wrote: My advice is to ignore the extra ethernet connection on the RN104. The platform isn't capable of generating/consuming more than one 1 gbps anyway, so bonding isn't worth the trouble. OP and subject refers to the Pro 6, though his profile does indeed state RN104.

Yes, I realized that right after I posted and added some comments on the pro-6. It can saturate a gbps connection.

While I agree it would be awesome to bridge the 2 ports in a (nonstandard) pass-through mode in order to daisy-chain ethernet, unfortunately it really comes down to that you need a switch, both for practical purposes and reliability.

if you want avoid an extra power brick, there are several options of USB powered gigabit switches.

I would recommend against any 10/100 switches, they will be excruciatingly slow if you do large files transfers.

https://www.google.com/#q=usb+powered+gigabit+switch