Secondary 1Gig Network Card / Link Aggregation?

[ColoradoRef]

Looks like the macOS supports link aggregation (LAG). I wanted to install a secondary NIC in my Coffee Lake Hackintosh and increase the throughput to a small NAS device. I see several discussions about PCI NIC's but none of them are very recent. Anybody got a suggestion for a 1Gb PCI network card that will work on High Sierra without a lot of hassle?

 

[Stork]

@ColoradoRef, @pastrychef is using a 10GB Ethernet card in his ASUS Z370-G system. See pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i7-8700K + AMD Vega 56.

 

[ColoradoRef]

@ColoradoRef, @pastrychef is using a 10GB Ethernet card in his ASUS Z370-G system. See pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i7-8700K + AMD Vega 56.

Thanks for the reply. Was hoping to identify a 1Gb card since neither my NAS or network support 10Gb. The NAS is a Synology 918+ and has dual 1Gb links.

 

[Stork]

Thanks for the reply. Was hoping to identify a 1Gb card since neither my NAS or network support 10Gb. The NAS is a Synology 918+ and has dual 1Gb links.

Opps. I'm sorry for the misread. I recommend you review/post your question in the Network forum section > https://www.tonymacx86.com/forums/network.15/

 

[neofusion]

Link aggregation can benefit you if you have multiple clients accessing files on the NAS at the same time. In this case you typically set it up between the NAS and a strategically chosen switch.

From your description it sounds like may be connecting the NAS directly to your computer. If that's the case, and there are no other clients involved, you will most likely lower your practical bandwidth instead of increasing it; since your single client would be unable to use more than 1 Gbit/s and link aggregation itself adds some overhead.

 

[ColoradoRef]

Link aggregation can benefit you if you have multiple clients accessing files on the NAS at the same time. In this case you typically set it up between the NAS and a strategically chosen switch.

From your description it sounds like may be connecting the NAS directly to your computer. If that's the case, and there are no other clients involved, you will most likely lower your practical bandwidth instead of increasing it; since your single client would be unable to use more than 1 Gbit/s and link aggregation itself adds some overhead.

Interesting....so in your opinion, I would be better off having a NAS that supports a 10GB connection and putting a 10GB NIC in my mac? Rather than doing multiple 1GB connections with LAG?

My ultimate goal is to speed up Time Machine backups.......the NAS is sitting right next to my Mac and yes, I was going to do a direct connection to it.

Thanks!

 

[neofusion]

There's an ongoing thread in in the forum that might be helpful, it contains compatible NICs and people's experiences with them.

So yes, a 10gbE card should work and should give you a higher transfer rate; assuming your NAS has support for it and the the drives involved (on your computer and in the NAS) can read/write fast enough. I haven't tried it myself though, so take it with a pinch of salt.