Set Port Trunking on your QNAP NAS to increase the bandwidth via 802.3ad protocol

Port Trunking, also known as LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol), allows you to combine multiple LAN interfaces for increased bandwidth and load balancing for multiple clients. It also provides failover capabilities to maintain network connectivity if a network port fails.

• 802.3ad (Dynamic Link Aggregation) is the No.5 mode according to the IEEE 802.3ad specification. It uses a complex algorithm to aggregate adapters by speed and duplex settings to provide load balancing and fault tolerance but requires a switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad with LACP mode properly configured.

Note: Your switch must support 802.3ad.
Note: A NAS with multiple LAN ports is required.

Follow these steps to set up your NAS.

1. Log into the NAS as an administrator. Go to “Main Menu” > “Network & Virtual Switch” > “Interfaces”. Click “Port Trunking”.
   
   
2. Click “Add” from the pop-up window.
   
3. Select the network interfaces to use and select 802.3ad for the Port Trunking Mode.
   
4. Click the settings button beside 802.3ad.
   
5. Select a HASH policy for 802.3ad:
   The default setting is “layer 2 (MAC)“. This is compatible with every switch but only offers load balancing by MAC address. We recommend using “Layer 2+3 (MAC+IP)” for greater performance but you will need to check that your switch supports it.
   
6. Click “Apply” to finish.
   

Test Results:

The test results of before and after Port Trunking is as follows.

1. A Gigabit Ethernet Network
   1. One user downloading a large video file from the NAS:
      
   2. One user uploading a large video file to the NAS:
      
   3. Two users downloading a large video file from the NAS at the same time:
      
      
      The throughput of the NAS reaches 108~110 MB/s (downloading):
      
   4. Two users upload a large video file to the NAS at the same time:
      
      
      The throughput of NAS reaches 102~104 MB/s (uploading):
      
   
   
2. Aggregating two Gigabit Ethernet Networks on the NAS
   1. One user downloads a large video file from the NAS:
      
   2. One user uploads a large video file to the NAS:
      
   3. Two users download a large video file from the NAS at the same time:
      
      
      The throughput of NAS reaches 210~223 MB/s (downloading):
      
   4. Two users upload a large video file to the NAS at the same time:
      
      
      The throughput of NAS reaches 200~210 MB/s (uploading):
      

As displayed by the test results, Port Trunking can increase bandwidth on a QNAP NAS . But please note the following:

1. Port Trunking cannot break the speed limit of a single Ethernet device, but it offers a sufficient amount of bandwidth for multiple users connecting at the same time. For example, if two 1Gb NICs are used for Port Trunking, the aggregated network bandwidth will be increased to 2Gb, but the network speed will remain 1Gb.
2. Available system resources and the maximum read/write speeds of the storage devices on the NAS will greatly influence the overall bandwidth.
   
   Source :
   https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/set-port-trunking-on-your-qnap-nas-to-increase-the-bandwidth-via-802-3ad-protocol