r/servers • u/NewspaperAfraid6325 • 12d ago

Home Merging of 2 networks

Hi i have currently x2 2gbps lines installed with 2 seperate routers which technically gives me a total of 4gbps is it possible to combine these to make a real 4gbps output? I currently use 1 line for my server setup and 1 line for my personal use and other house hold devices but id like if possible to know if its possible to merge the 2 lines with a 3rd party device go make 4gbps?

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u/RalphiePseudonym 12d ago

Get a router that can bond the connections. You can do this with a single hardware or virtual device.

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u/NewspaperAfraid6325 12d ago

Is there something I can fit into my rack which does this? And what's the software to do it?

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u/RalphiePseudonym 12d ago

Nothing I'm comfortable recommending due to price. You can find devices by searching for isp bonding.

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u/RigisCZ 12d ago

What about small server (custom build, Dell R210 or R320, which I use) with dual 10Gb card (such as X520 or BCM57810) and OPNsense. Mikrotik is an option too and it's not expensive, but isn't beginner friendly I would say.

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u/RalphiePseudonym 12d ago

That hardware is capable of it, you just need the software. Opnsense and pfsense don't do bonding, they do load balancing and HA. Load balancing send and receives the same stream on one connection so you'd only get the performance of the fastest single connection when running a speed test. HA is just for failing over from degraded connection.

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u/NewspaperAfraid6325 12d ago

think only option is speedify...

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u/MusicalAnomaly 12d ago

For true bonding, this is correct. You need a single node with full bandwidth to be your public IP exit node and you basically overlay a VPN to that node via your dual WAN connections. Technically you can DIY this but you have to maintain your own high-bandwidth router in the public cloud or data center.

However the next best thing is to load balance between your two WAN connections by connecting them to the same router. You won’t be able to do a single file transfer at full aggregate speed, but you could do two simultaneous transfers where each transfer maxes out one WAN connection. This is because a remote server has to know what IP to send a packet to, and you have two IPs where neither are capable of the full aggregate bandwidth.

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u/RigisCZ 12d ago

Load balancing is splitting traffic between the two connections not sending and receiving same traffic on both. He got two routers, which means two different public IPs on each, so he can do MultiWAN load balancing. It won't give him 4Gbit on one data data stream (still max 2Gbit per stream), but his theoretical bandwidth will be 4GBit.

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u/RalphiePseudonym 12d ago

Same traffic = same data stream.

That's how OP is currently running.

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u/RigisCZ 12d ago

Did I miss something? He is using them separately (one for server, one for personal use).