two network adapter cards in one machine

[samm]

Is it possible to have two network adapters working simultaneously on the same machine? Will it help throughput? I need to optimise our file server.

Thanks

Salam

http://www.insomnious.com

 

[fenris]

It is possible to have two or more nics in the same machine. They are not used in the way the you want them to be used though. They are used to link subnets together.

 

[jahlmer]

Actually, this would be called a MULTIHOMED system. If you really want to optimize the network, you should remove unnecessary services (wins, dns, dhcp, etc)... Now, don't remove ALL of them, but just the ones that you don't NEED. If you have a small network, consider static ip addresses (it doesn't take as many packets) ... Also, remove NETBEUI or any unnecessary protocols ... and you'll be on your way to a happy lan.

 

[ATCal]

I like the Intel NICs. They have special single port and multi-port adapters that can teamed using Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB)to provide up to 800Mbps when connected to a switch. They also provide for redundancy should one NIC fail. Should you have serious bucks, 8 Gigabit NICs can also be teamed for 8 GIG of throughput!

For more info:

http://www.intel.com/network/technologies/load_balancing.htm

Follow the chart link and choose Server Adapters for more updated info.

 

[Guest_imported]

Teaming can work, but if you use Mac file you have to stick to just one network card.

 

[samm]

Mac file??

 

[Zelandakh]

The Macintosh side of NT can only use one NIC at a time unless you start zoning. If you don't use Macs, don't bother worrying yourself!

Samm - you want to optimise your server. Is it the network that is your bottleneck? Are you sure?

 

[dgrewe]

I have 8 NT Machines with 4-Nic's in each computer. Each Nic goes to a seperate hub so the network is segmented into 4 pieces.
Does this Answer Your Question.?

 

[samm]

um...i still need help.....

 

[samm]

um...i still need help.....

 

[SRaji]

HI,
We have a Pentium II NT Server with Internal Network Card. Our Linux Server connected to the Router had crashed, so we temporarily thought of utilising our NT Server to connect to the router and access the leased line. We added one more NIC (external) to the system. But the system crashed several times and we failed in configuring it. Atlast we managed with one NIC (internal)card and one IP Address and connected one time to the LAN, changed IP and connected the leased line and did ftp. Any reasons of why this had happened??

Rajalakshmi
dassraji@hotmail.com

 

[Pritch5000]

Hey.
I've installed a quite a few servers with the Intel teaming (with and without Mac file). If your trying to increase thruput to/from your server and the network because its causing a bottleneck, NTCal got it right. Follow his/her link I'm sure it goes somewhere useful.

There is of course 1001 things you can do to 'optimise'.

You can of course, as Fenris said, use you server's NICs to bridge two networks, but that is not optimising, installing a new bit of kit to do the bridging would be better.

With teaming installed the cards have one ip address assigned to the team and not to individual NICs, 'a virtual NIC' I suppose. It does not present a problem with Macintosh Services, or at least I've never had any relating to it.

Samm - I think, perhaps, you need to define your actual problem a bit more clearly.
Pritch.

 

[dpellegrini]

Samm,
What exactly is needing to be optimized? The are a number of ways of optimizing performance without having to add hardware. Segmenting the network (adding another nic and attaching it to another hub) is one way. But it really depends on what the issues are that you are trying to resolve. Explain in a little more detail and let's see if we can better assist you.
Domenick Pellegrini [sig][/sig]

 

[dhalerci]

Following up with the original question about two NIC cards in the same NT 4 server, I have a PDC and have added 2 3com NIC cards. I want one card (Port 1) to attach to our WAN hub and the second NIC (Port 2) to our Cisco 1605 router using a cross-over cable. Basic setup would be:

1. Add the cards to the network configuration
2. Add TCP/IP configuration for both cards
- does each static IP address have to have a seperate subnet? Something like 200.200.44.20 and 200.200.45.20 or can I use say 200.200.44.20 and 200.200.44.21.
3. Should we turn IP Forwarding on both cards?
4. This server is a PDC and WINS is in the picture, does this have to be accounted for?
5. How should we establish the BINDS? Should both cards have all the BINDS enabled?

We want to run RAS and PPTP (VPN) on the server to allow access from WIN 98 clients using VPN from the Internet. What we've see so far is the ability to add the cards, configure TCP/IP for both cards with IP Forwarding on each and everything bound and once rebooted the server cannot PING anything other than himself.

David [sig][/sig]