Network Connection Method

[HMUSER]

I currently have a 7.2Tb starter kit which is made up of 2 shelves.

Each shelf has 2 NIC's now what it is the best method of connecting the shelves to my 2 switches.

Should I have one shelf going to one switch and the other shelf going to the other switch or should i have a Nic from each shelf going to each switch?

[Jay Cardin]

I think most people will connect each shelf to two separate switches and use ALB.  This is easy to setup and generally works well.

Another way is to use 802.3ad to bond two links but they typically need to be attached to the same switch.  This gives you better performance but a switch failure would drop an entire shelf.  If you have two switches that support distributed trunking (HP 3500YL for example), you can use an 802.3ad bond to two separate switches.  This gives you the speed advantages of 802.3ad and the redundancy of two switches.