File Server/Plex Server/Random VMware stuff Server

[watercooled]

If you mean you want to be able to max GigE from the server on one client, while streaming videos to another client, then yeah what I described should work fine provided you have the IO bandwidth to back it up (trying to copy huge files at high speed while streaming something else tends to kill performance of mechanical drives, so it might be worth experimenting with a different volume for media, or some sort of caching).

Or, as shaithis says, you can do link aggregation at higher layers provided both ends are fully aware of it. If all you need is access to the filesystem, then an iSCSI volume might be a good idea, but it's treated more like a local drive, with the client handling the filesystem etc, and only one client can use it at a time.

You could get something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000RAILSQ but with two two-way LAGG groups, you've already used half of the ports.

[DanceswithUnix]

Isn't that a quality of service issue more than bandwidth? Sounds like you need to give priority to video streams.

[abaxas]

"D Video movies have a maximum data transfer rate of 54 Mbit/s, a maximum AV bitrate of 48 Mbit/s (for both audio and video data), and a maximum video bit rate of 40 Mbit/s."

Ie the problem is elsewhere... teaming wont solve it.

[spoon_]

Link aggregation (EtherChannel/LACP etc.) won't help here as you cannot go beyond bandwidth of a single NIC with only 1 client... You need at least two clients to be able to burst to speed of two NICs.

[Pancake]

Link aggregation (EtherChannel/LACP etc.) won't help here as you cannot go beyond bandwidth of a single NIC with only 1 client... You need at least two clients to be able to burst to speed of two NICs.

Well, my PC will be copying files while my Smart TV streams plex. So that should work, 2 clients

[DanceswithUnix]

Well, my PC will be copying files while my Smart TV streams plex. So that should work, 2 clients

Now if two PC clients start copying files, you are back to square one. Perhaps several video clients would unbalance things again as well.

That was my point earlier, if you can set a Quality of Service for video streaming ports or client machines so that that traffic is routed before the bulk data, then it wouldn't matter how fat or narrow your pipes were. Your policy will say how things work, your interface/wire speeds set how fast it all goes in total.

[watercooled]

Yeah, with proper QoS it shouldn't be much of a concern even with a single link - streaming at a few Mbps will only have a negligible impact on bulk transfers. If anything you should focus on the actual storage IO as I said earlier - parallel transfers tend to kill performance of mechanical storage.