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I've got a server with Windows Server 2012 R2 installed on it. 1 NIC on the server is used for management purposes and I've teamed the 3 other NICs which communicate with our SAN to carry out VM backups.

I'm also aware that Windows offers the MPIO feature for managing load balancing and redundancy. My question then is this:

Since I have my NIC's teamed, should I also setup MPIO or will teaming alone do the job? Is there any harm in using MPIO and teaming? Is one better than the other?

jrd1989
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1 Answers1

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If you are using the network to access storage (i.e. iSCSI), then you should avoid NIC teaming and use MPIO.

If you are using the network to transfer data, you can use NIC teaming to achieve fault tolerance and higher bandwidth (but this usually requires support from the switch, too).

Thus, the answer depends on what you actually mean with "communicate with our SAN to carry out VM backups"...

Massimo
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