NIC Teaming Advice

[snagrat]

Firstly, there are no VLANs and the switches are not stacked although they are Layer2 so we do have access to the management features.

 

I have servers with 6x 1GB NICs and am looking at best way to Team them to get best performance. The server will host virtual machines.

 

My thinking is I either team up all 6 in one team, or create 3 teams of 2 nics. With either tram I will ensure that the connections go to different switches.

 

Is there a best method for this?

 

I could look at LACP but not sure if this works when the switches are not stacked?

 

Second question - I have 2x 10GB NIC for Storage Spaces Direct. These are connected between two servers with no switch. Is there a best setting for teaming these together to give me 20GB?

[smithson83]

If your servers are at least Server 2012 R2, there is a teaming option within the Teaming setup specifically for HyperV.

 

It's simple to setup, and doesn't require any switch config. With this setting the VM workload is automatically split over the available NICs

 

Edit....

 

As for all 6 or 2x3, I would use all six in a HyperV team, and just plug them up to two different switches

Edited February 15, 2018 by smithson83

[snagrat]

I saw the HyperV load balance option.

 

So with that would it be best for one team of 6 NICs as a virtual adaptor or a team of 4 NICs as a virtual adaptor, and the other 2 NICs in their own team only available to the physical host?

[FN-GM]

I could look at LACP but not sure if this works when the switches are not stacked

 

Correct, if you're spanning more than 1 physical switch them must be stacked.

[snagrat]

There is an option I can stack the switches if that would be a better option?

[FN-GM]

If you could have 6 x NIC on LACP I would pick that option. It will simplify the setup on your VM host, not only that you will get better performance.