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I'm trying to achieve a load-balanced NIC team on a Windows Server 2016 machine. This is a ProLiant using a 4x 1Gb 311FLR interface card which as of yesterday has the latest driver installed (100.20.0.64). The NIC team has been created in Windows Server. All four NICs have been added to the team and the following settings have been applied:

  • Teaming Mode - LACP
  • Load Balancing Mode - Dynamic

The server has been connected to a HP 5406Rzl2 which has the following config for the ports:

  • Mode - Auto
  • Flow Control - Enabled
  • LACP Status - Disabled
  • Trunk Type - LACP

We also have a NetApp connected to the switch using a 4x 1Gb trunked connection with the same config as the server ports.

The Windows server is running Backup Exec, when I run a backup and monitor the stats for the ports on the switch, only one of the server NICs is being used and this is only 0.5%
The backup job is extremely slow, even when tweaking the settings in BE.
The NetApp, which is configured the same on the switch end, is showing utilisation of all four NICs as I would expect.
I know I'm not going to get the full 4Gb but I would expect a lot more than 0.5%

Reading through a description of the Server teaming settings (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/windows-server-2016-nic-teaming-functionality) makes me think I have the correct configuration on the server end but clearly, something is not working as it should be.

So, my question is: How do I get load balancing to work at the server end?

Rich M
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    If your backup is not using even one whole NIC's worth of bandwidth, why do you think that teaming in more NIC's will fix the issue? – longneck Dec 13 '18 at 14:36
  • additionally to what longneck did write: do a real load test with something you know will saturate at least one link. As for the backup itself: slow things tend might be at least some of those: lot of small files, deduplication, compressing through transfer if your cpu is slow, encryption, saturation of the switch itself, the server(s) to backup beeing CPU/IO bound for normal use already, lower IO prio for backup processes. Imho best way to go: create a potent testsetup (CPU/IO/RAM) you will backup from, build the bonding again on that testsetup, and then send a defined amount of data. – Dennis Nolte Dec 13 '18 at 14:44
  • It's a fair question longneck! The backup is over 6 TB in size and is taking over a week to complete. It's going to LTO-7 tape which has hardware compression enabled so should be fairly quick but is not. There are lots of small files but we have another backup setup which is far less capable in all aspects backing up pretty much the same data which is much faster. I wondered if there was a problem with the NIC which was initially being used but couldn't find anything wrong with it so thought adding more would give some breathing space for the jobs. – Rich M Dec 13 '18 at 14:55
  • How is the server brand relevant here? I am not aware windows behaves different on HP. BAD TAGGING. – TomTom Dec 13 '18 at 14:58
  • Does the netapp support modern windwos file share features like multi streaming? Otherwise it will connect with ONE tcp stream, regardless how many nics you use. – TomTom Dec 13 '18 at 14:59
  • What would you recommend to saturate the a link? I'm testing with a single 5 GB file and twenty 200 MB files and also using the LAN Speed Test utility. – Rich M Dec 13 '18 at 14:59
  • I have no idea about the NetApp @TomTom, I'll have to have a look. – Rich M Dec 13 '18 at 15:00
  • It's the switch I've tagged not the server @TomTom. HP-PROCURVE – Rich M Dec 13 '18 at 15:01
  • @TomTom it's not a server brand, it's the switch.... – Lenniey Dec 13 '18 at 15:02
  • @Lenniey No. Let me quote: "a Windows Server 2016 machine. This is a ProLiant using a 4x 1Gb 311FLR interface card". This refers back to the server machine, obviously. – TomTom Dec 13 '18 at 15:03
  • @TomTom - This is not included in the post tags though. Anyway... – Rich M Dec 13 '18 at 15:05
  • I mean the "BAD TAGGING" comment. The tag is about a switch – Lenniey Dec 13 '18 at 15:05

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