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Intel NIC Teaming under Windows 10

RM8
Novice
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Hello

I'm currently considering to upgrade my home LAN for better NAS transfer capabilities, using Port Teaming at 802.3ad protocol.

I'm using Windows 10 64-bit on my PC. I have built in Intel I219-V adapter on my MB.

I've read about the Windows 10 port teaming issues, which should be already solved, but not all of the NICs are supported on the update.

Here are the options i consider:

1) Buy new Intel I210-T1 Single Ethernet adapter (35-40$) (from HP) and team it with my I219-V - will port teaming work with these two different NICs under Windows 10? (in windows 10 compatibility support table it says that I210 has full support but what about I219?)

2) Buy used Intel I340-T2 Dual Ethernet adapter (25-30$) and apply teaming to both ports - in compatiblity support table it says that I340 doesn't have full support...

3) Buy used Intel 1000 PRO/PT Dual Ethernet Adapter (10-15$) (it's cheaper than used I340, and cheaper than new I210-T1) - in compatiblity support table it says that it doesn't have full support...

10gb/s cards are not affordable... they're too expensive... same as I350-T2 (150$)...

If i had to choose between I350-T2 and 10bg/s adapters - X520-T2 would be a better choice than I350-T2 - X520 has dual 10gb/s ports, and full support, but it costs about 125$...

I don't want to waste my money... I have to by a 802.3ad switch (costs about 100USD), and i don't want to spend too much money - my main goal is to increase NAS transfer rate between my PC and NAS above 112,5 MB/s - so it's not worth spending few hundred bucks...

I also would like to be 100% effective with my choice so i won't stay with few network cards

Please help me to decide which adapter i should by

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7 Replies
idata
Employee
2,111 Views

Hi Blademccoy,

 

 

Thank you for posting at Wired Communities. Since you need to implement 802.3ad teaming, it is recommended you purchase network adapter that can support teaming in Windows 10, which means you need to have full driver support. You may refer to below website:

 

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/ethernet-products/000020905.html

 

 

You may visit below website for the list of Intel Gigabit adapters:

 

https://ark.intel.com/products/family/46829/Intel-Gigabit-Server-Adapters

 

 

What is the brand and model of your board? As the teaming will be done with onboard NIC, I would suggest you to contact the board vendor for the compatibility of the external standalone NIC on your board before you purchase.

 

 

Thanks,

 

sharon
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RM8
Novice
2,111 Views

Hi Sharon, thank you for the reply.

My motherboard is Asus Maximus VIII Formula with built in Ethernet Intel I219-V NIC.

I found that the cheapest adapter that has full suport is Intel I210-T1 - it costs about 40$ for the new piece - the one i found is Hewlett-Packard Intel Ethernet I210-T1 GbE NIC (E0X95AA).

They don't list IEEE 802.3ad in the specification of this network card, but i think it's because this card has only one Ethernet port - so it needs another card to support IEEE 802.3ad, and while using Intel Pro drivers i can create a team basing on IEEE 802.3ad protocol for LACP - am i right?

Unfortunatelly my built-in I219-V NIC is not listed in the Windows 10 Support list - although in my network card settings (with Intel Pro drivers installed), when i want to create a new team i can see my card on the list (i have only one ethernet network card so i can't test it, if it works). But i guess that teaming should work? (It's quite new NIC, announced in 2015)

Do you think that buying this single port adapter with I210 NIC would work fine with my I219-V ?

Thanks for the help!

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idata
Employee
2,111 Views

Hi Blademccoy,

 

 

Thank you for the reply. I managed to find the supported network adapter on Asus

 

wesbite for your board, please refer to page 9 at

 

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/MAXIMUS_VIII_FORMULA/M8F_Device_QVL.PDF

 

?_ga=2.228211358.2015447157.1504141822-794153515.1503548507

 

 

 

However the two models expi9400pt and E1G42ET mentioned there do not have

 

Windows 10 full support driver ( https://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-

 

035770.htm). I210-T1 is not listed in the supported list of your board but you may

 

want to check with Asus* for confirmation.

 

 

 

Server adapters supports teaming and I210-T1 is a server adapter.

 

 

Please refer to below for reference about teaming information:

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/ethernet-products/000005667.html

 

 

I would suggest you check with Asus* about compatiblity of I210-T1 on their system. Hope this helps.

 

 

Thanks,

 

sharon

 

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RM8
Novice
2,111 Views

Hello again Sharon

I'll check with Asus if their on-board devices will be compatible with I210-T1, and I'll let you know what they said

Thank's again

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idata
Employee
2,111 Views

HI Blademccoy,

 

 

You are welcome, please feel free to update me. Thank you.

 

 

Regards,

 

sharon

 

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idata
Employee
2,111 Views

Hi Blademccoy,

 

 

Please feel free to update me if you have already contacted Asus* and hope to hear good news from you.

 

 

Regards,

 

sharon

 

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RM8
Novice
2,111 Views

Hi Sharon

I finally didn't get a response from Asus, so i decided to do it my way

1) I bought Intel I210-T1 ethernet adapter, and Cisco SG 200-08 switch which supports 802.3ad.

2) I've installed the Intel Network Adapter Driver for Windows 10, and set up a 802.3ad based team in adapter settings - I've encountered few errors with blue screen while doing this, but i finally managed to set up the team.

3) I also set-up LACP (802.3ad) on Cisco switch and chosen two ports which were connected to I210-T1 and I219-V.

4) My router now can see my PC with single IP addres which is set as static address for I219-V, and i have a network connection with 2.0Gbps speed in ethernet adapter status under Windows 10

5) I had some trouble with finding other devices in my network (Avast Firewall messed up discovery, but i fixed it)

6) When i transfer files to two different devices from my PC i can get around 200MB/s of total transfer

7) When i transfer files from one device (QNAP NAS with 2Gbps LACP 802.3ad), to my PC - i can only get around 110 MB/s, but the transfer rate is more stable, and it doesn't slow down (on single 1Gbps ethernet adapter, with TP-Link unmanaged switch my transfer speed varied from 60 to 90 MB/s)

I'm thinking if it's possible to get 200MB/s while transfering files from QNAP do my PC... but i'm not sure how to do this...

The main advantage is that i can transfer files from my PC to QNAP or from QNAP to PC without slowing down the intenet transfer rate (when i had a single adapter, and it reached it's capacity while transfering large files between my PC and QNAP, my internet speed was slowing down, because the link was mostly populated by QNAP<=>PC packets)

Generally... i took a risk, I chose the cheaper option with adding single-NIC adapter, and i've managed to team it with my built-in on-board NIC

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