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Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?

dhl
Luminary
Luminary

Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?

I'm looking to set up a second 626X for our San Francisco studio and am curious if I can take advantage of bonding to double up and downstream bandwidth on a 10Gbe network. The idea is to run the 626 into this switch:

 

MikroTik 5-Port Desktop Switch, 1 Gigabit Ethernet Port, 4 SFP+ 10Gbps Ports (CRS305-1G-4S+IN) 

 

which my desktop machine would connect to via a 10Gbe card.

 

I've tested the 626 10Gbe port direct into my system and got ~450-700Mb/s up and down with a Cat 6 direct connection to the NAS which is configured in XRAID-6 with five 8TB Segate drives.

 

Would it be possible to get double that bandwidth using bonding and perhaps better quality cabling? This would be the same ReadyNAS model also in XRAID-6 but probably with larger drives. I'm thinking four 12TB WD Ultrastars.

 

Any advice much apreciated. Thanks!

Model: RN626X|ReadyNAS 626X – 6 Bays with Intel® Xeon® Quad-Core Server Processor
Message 1 of 7
StephenB
Guru

Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?

I don't think so.  A 10 gpbs interface can carry over 1200 MB/s of traffic. You didn't get anywhere close to that in your testing, so you weren't limited by the network.  FWIW, I also use 10 gpbs with my own NAS, and I get similar speeds.

 

Even if you were network-bound, you usually only see a benefit if you have several devices accessing the NAS at the same time.  Bonding works best when the bonded interfaces are carrying several different data flows (going to or from several different devices)..

 

It does no harm to try it though - your switch does support bonding.

 

Message 2 of 7
dhl
Luminary
Luminary

Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?

@StephenB 

 

Makes sense. I was hoping I might approach NVMe speeds but that's probably a pipe dream. Even if I could get SSD speeds with NAS capacity and redundancy, that would be a win. I've been wanting to do this upgrade for a while and will hopefully have the needed resources soon. Once I do I'll give bonding a try and let you know how it goes. Thanks!

Message 3 of 7
sharmy
Apprentice

Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?

I have my 626X (4 X 8TB RED PRO)  set up as you describe (bonded to a M4300 switch 802.3ad LACP Layer 3+4) and can confirm an increase in bandwidth/throughput. For what it is worth, all connections are with CAT 6A cabling. Of course, your other devices' capabilities will determine how much of an improvement you actually see.

 

 

Model: RN626X|ReadyNAS 626X – 6 Bays with Intel® Xeon® Quad-Core Server Processor, RNDP4000|ReadyNAS Pro 4 Chassis only, S3300-52X (GS752TX)|ProSafe 48 ports stackable smart switches, XS716T|16-Port 10-Gigabit Copper Smart Managed Pro Switch with 2 Copper/SFP+ Combo Ports, XSM4324S|M4300-12X12F - Stackable Managed Switch with 24x10G including 12x10GBASE-T and 12xSFP+ Layer 3
Message 4 of 7
StephenB
Guru

Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?


@dhl wrote:

Even if I could get SSD speeds with NAS capacity and redundancy, that would be a win. 


ReadyTier is worth considering.  You'd need to go with no more than 6 mechanical disks though.

 

Caching metadata on the SSD would speed up folder browsing, and copying folders with small files (photos for instance).  Caching data is also possible, and could help if you frequently access a working set of files while on a project. 

Message 5 of 7
dhl
Luminary
Luminary

Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?


@StephenB wrote:

@dhl wrote:

Even if I could get SSD speeds with NAS capacity and redundancy, that would be a win. 


ReadyTier is worth considering.  You'd need to go with no more than 6 mechanical disks though.

 

Caching metadata on the SSD would speed up folder browsing, and copying folders with small files (photos for instance).  Caching data is also possible, and could help if you frequently access a working set of files while on a project. 



My hope is to be able to use the ReadyNAS as live project storage during production. I work on immersive 360° video projects with very large size video files and would like to be able to keep them on the NAS while I'm working. With enough bandwidth, in theory it should work. But it means that my general use case would be streaming large files instead of working with lots of small ones. Would ReadyTier help with this?

Message 6 of 7
StephenB
Guru

Re: Bonding 10Gbe ports to get double bandwidth with RN626X - is it possible?


@dhl wrote:
But it means that my general use case would be streaming large files instead of working with lots of small ones. Would ReadyTier help with this?

Metadata caching helps the most with folder browsing (or just opening a lot of files from an application).  Data Caching can help with file transfer speeds, but of course that depends on how the cache is managed and whether the files fit on the SSD in the first place.

 

How large are the files?  What file transfer speeds do you need? 

 

SATA 3 is limited to 600 MB/sec.  If you are looking to exceed 1000 MB/sec you'll need to use RAID-0 - though other RAID modes (like RAID-10) might work, they would need more SSDs.  Running ReadyTier with RAID-0 is a bad idea - you could easily lose your data volume.  But another possibility is to set up a SSD RAID-0 volume, and move the files to/from the SSD volume as needed.

 

If you get a couple of SSDs, you can test this.  Just power down the NAS, remove the existing disks (labeling by slot), and do a fresh install with the SSDs.  Use flexraid, so you can choose RAID-0. After you've done your performance tests, you can power down, and just reinsert the original disks in their original slots.

 

 

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