ESXi and LACP

[Nicolas1988]

Hello,

I have two ESXi 5.0 (20VMS).

The switch support LACP.

I am considering of configuring LACP.

Do you think that it is a good idea to use LACP?

If yes, what type of LACP should I use?



Frenas : Freenasble 9.3 Stable
Disk : 20(only 6 are in use)
Motherboard : X7DB8/X7DBE SuperMicro
Memory : 16GB

 

[Nicolas1988]

I forgot to specified size of disk

20 x 2TB disk

 

[anodos]

Please provide more details of your setup. Is the FreeNAS server a VM? Is it hosting storage for ESXI? If so, iSCSI or NFS?

 

[Nicolas1988]

Please provide more details of your setup. Is the FreeNAS server a VM? Is it hosting storage for ESXI? If so, iSCSI or NFS?

it is a Physical machine

Frenas : Freenasble 9.3 Stable
Disk : 20(only 6 are in use)
Motherboard : X7DB8/X7DBE SuperMicro
Memory : 16GB

Hypervisor is ESX 5.0

The freenas host the Datastore of the ESX and via ISCSI

Nicolas

 

[Mega Man]

from my experience ( Which is minimal ) LACP is relatively painless to set up !~!

and afaik there are little to no downsides to using it. if you can enable it, i would - assuming esp that you stream off of it !~

 

[jgreco]

There are certainly downsides. Most of them revolve around users not really understanding the technology or what it is actually doing for them. Users commonly try doing things like mixing interface types, or expecting that it means that they can double the throughput of a 1Gbps connection. If you actually have a dozen different machines that are all talking to your filer, then, yes, LACP for the win.

 

[Nicolas1988]

Hi jgreco,

What are the downsides?

Can you please tell me if the firts port is connected to a 10/100/1000 and the second port is connected to the 10/100 switch, c an we do LACP?

Nicolas

 

[jgreco]

As a new user to the FreeNAS forums, welcome.

You may be disappointed by the apparent low lack of interest on behalf of the community in addressing your question.

Please note that most questions that can be asked already have been asked, and answered, usually repeatedly, so do avail yourself of both the numerous stickies that are peppered throughout the relevant forums, and also the search feature, conveniently located in the upper right hand corner of every forum page.

You will hopefully find numerous answers, but if you don't, I refer you to the LACP sticky.

 

[no_connection]

Fist of all LACP is not supported in ESXi unless you use vDS or 1000V.

You can bundle links together if you specify it manually on both sides. You need to use IP based hash as MAC based will not work.

If you should is another matter.

 

[jgreco]

Strictly speaking, LACP may not be supported, but ESXi has robust interface teaming features that perform many of the same functions.

 

[no_connection]

That is what I said =)

I have used it and it works, I even got traffic flowing through all three interfaces.
We had three ESXi hosts and one FreeNAS with a HP switch in the middle. Used VLANS for everything.
MGMT was the 4th interface.
Mostly to test it out and I'm not that sure we gained anything in real life for what we did.

 

[jgreco]

You can gain reliability, primarily. Our hypervisors have 4 x 10G links into them, two of which are on standby in a redundant configuration.