Okay, so now here’s a trick question. Can you do Link Aggregation Groups (LAGs) on an unmanaged/SOHO switch? In general, no. However, there is one notable exception. If you are connecting a computer directly to the switch that supports Link Aggregation Groups in the operating system, then you can effec link aggregation, but only to that particular computer. You cannot use link aggregation in, say, a trunk connection between two switches.
So wait… actually, that means I can do it. Here’s the trick. If you’ve got a smart managed switch on one end and an unmanaged switch on the other end, you can configure a link aggregation group in the smart managed switch, and just connect up the unmanaged switch as-is. The smart switch will work everything out. Assuming… assuming that the unmanaged switch is smart enough to update its MAC tables to allow a packet to be forwarded down any of the applicable ports, rather than constraining MAC address forwarding to a single port.
20200121/DuckDuckGo link aggregation group unmanaged switch
20200121/https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/do6zjd/link_aggregation_possible_on_unmanaged_switch/
20200121/https://serverfault.com/questions/840700/does-freenas-link-aggregation-work-with-an-unmanaged-switch
20200121/https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32557662-Home-Network-Link-aggregation-with-unmanaged-switch
You must not simply connect multiple cables between switches without any LAG configuration, else that will create a switch loop.
20200121/DuckDuckGo can an unmanaged switch forward same mac to multiple ports
20200121/https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/33831/how-to-detect-loops-created-by-unmanaged-switches
20200121/DuckDuckGo connect multiple cables between unmanaged switches
20200121/https://serverfault.com/questions/506098/connecting-two-desktop-switches-with-more-than-one-cable
20200121/https://serverfault.com/questions/720964/lag-managed-to-unmanaged-switch
Alas, upon further research, looks like even if you do have a smart managed switch on one side and the unmanaged switch on the other, you will still get problems with switch loops .
Ha, but wait! If you get the right smart managed switch… it may have a “dumb learning mode” that can make LAGs work even with unmanaged switches?
20200121/https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/can-unmanaged-switches-do-passive-lacp-is-that-possible.2558836/
Ah, here’s a lead. Fake LAG (FLAG). It does have its limitations compared to real LAG, namely that it intermittently collapses down to a single link every time there is an ARP request broadcast, but hey, after that settles down, it works well for the time in beween by rewriting ARP addresses to balance across two interfaces/ports. That being said, the two ports do need separate MAC addresses, so this won’t work with a simple smart managed switch that only has one MAC address for the whole switch. By another source, transmit can use both links, but receive can only use one link.
20200121/DuckDuckGo fake link aggregation
20200121/https://datacenteroverlords.com/2013/09/02/link-aggregation/