NIC load-balancing?

[zuffy]

I have the EVGA E758-TR. It has 2 NICs in the motherboard. Do EVGA or Realtek have any software to team the 2 NICs for load-balancing / redundancy? I don't seem to find it from either website.

 

[elpresidente2075]

It is doubtful if the realtek lan chips will be able to do nic teaming (another name) or link aggregation (yet again). That is just one of the things that is not often supported on consumer-level hardware, as it's usage in the home is very limited. To learn more about this kind of setup, I recommend the wikipedia page: Wikipedia Link. To make a useful boil down of that information, if you are looking to see if the hardware specifically supports this function, it must support the IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation protocol to do it properly. The ~$40 intel cards from newegg do, as well as all of their server cards. Interestingly, if an intel card is installed, and the intel proset software is configured properly, the onboard NICs are sometimes able to be used as part of a nic team. For reference, these are the cards I am referring to: Newegg Link

All of that said, I'll tell you my experience: nic teaming for home use has no net gain. The complexity is increased somewhat, as is hardware cost (with buying compliant switches/routers) and speed is only marginally affected. The ports are not used in unison, but used one at a time and only "failover" if one link fails or is overloaded. Since home networks (the kind I assume yours is) very, very rarely test gigabit links' limits, your redundancy/failover would only serve to take up an extra port on your switch/router.

Now that's not to say that having multiple network ports is a bad thing or a waste. Virtualization is what I've found to be the best use of multiple network cards, allowing virtualized routers and servers out the wazoo, all great fun and quite the learning experience. Also an option is to use it as a network bridge to a close-by console, such as a 360 or ps3, reducing the amount of cabling required and making a nice, neat setup.

Regardless of how you use the builtin lan, congrats on the board. I hope it serves you well, and is as fast as it seems to be.

 

[yh125d]

Holy first post batman



I believe the gigabyte boards with dual realtek NICs can be teamed. I don't know if the software for it is gigabytes or realteks though

 

[zuffy]

Thanks for the info. I am familiar with NIC teaming from the HP Proliant servers I support at work. I have done teaming with Broadcom and Intel NICs in the PCs. This is my first time dealing with Realtek so I wasn't sure if there is a support for it thus the thread I started.

 

[elpresidente2075]

Originally posted by: zuffy
Thanks for the info. I am familiar with NIC teaming from the HP Proliant servers I support at work. I have done teaming with Broadcom and Intel NICs in the PCs.

In that case, you know all about what I'm talking about. As for realtek specifically, I'll say it might be technically possible, but I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole with the realtek drivers.

Originally posted by: yh125d
Holy first post batman

You gotta start somewhere.