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[corin]

We've got a studio with three Mac Pro towers, each has two onboard gig ethernet ports. Got the D-Link DGS-1224T, HW ver D2, FW 4.21.01. We bought this with hope of doing link aggregation for each of the 3 Mac Pros so they could have happy file transfer speeds between workstations.

I'm wondering if anyone here has ever set this up--Apple seems to say "it works" and then provides almost no documentation.

First I connect the Mac Pro to the switches (with new cat6 cables). Each sees the connection and gets a legit address via DHCP from the router. The switch has a static address not in the DHCP range and is on the same subnet as the router.

Everything about setting up link aggregation online eventually leads back to this brief article:
http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=20060724001

And I can follow these directions and get a link up, but it appears to only work with the first machine I do this with--each of the following loses connection and the status screen either says "wrong group" AND kicks all the other machines off as well (by which I mean all three lose connectivity).

There's some disagreement on thar Interwebs about turning on trunking on the switch. Tried turning on trunking for the 6 ports that the Mac Pros are connected to and then they completely lose connectivity, whether link aggregation is on or off on the Mac Pros.

So I'm baffled. Tried swapping in a Netgear GS724v3 switch and it was actually worse--no machine could start an aggregated link (bond, trunk, LAG, whatever).

Has anyone here successfully set this up? What am I missing?

[Fatman]

The Apple Document that I found real easy makes it seem like the process should be as simple as is listed under the first link.  That said that doc was made for 10.4, there may (will) be some differences at this point.

Unfortunately you also have to ensure your switch is set up and configured for LACP as is mentioned in the second link.

The DGS-1224T does NOT support LACP, it supports static aggregation only.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=serveradmin/10.4/en/c3ha3.html

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24277?viewlocale=en_US

[corin]

OK, that explains that. Thank you. Is there a D-Link gigabit switch that does support LACP? We really only need 12-ports. 

I really appreciate your fast response, btw.

[Fatman]

There sure are, but unfortunately I am not in a position where I can recommend one.

Talk to the kind folks at our pre-sales line at 1 800 326 1688 ext. 5434

If you tell them what you just told me, they should point you in the right direction.