What is the point of Dual Ethernet?

[Trance183]

ok, so of course we now have motherboards with two ethernet ports. does anyone know what the benefits are? i only use one port, but can someone give me a real life example of how we can take advantage of dual ethernet?

 

[aryaba]

ok, so of course we now have motherboards with two ethernet ports. does anyone know what the benefits are? i only use one port, but can someone give me a real life example of how we can take advantage of dual ethernet?

Here you go:

For a server:
First port, public network
Second port, maintenance network

For a gateway:
First port, one network segment
Second port, a different network segment
with protocol translation on the machine

For a workstation:
First port, regular network (internet and Workstation to Workstation networking)
Second port, Storage area network for accessing network storage

For backup:
First port, blown.
Second port, working

It depends on the function of the machine. Segmenting network traffic is a good way of controlling access to the network.

Use your imagination.

 

[Trance183]

i see, so would it be possible to have 2 internet connections from two difference sources and have twice the download bandwith or speed?

 

[dragabain]

I guess you could, but your theoretical limitation is the pci bus which can only burst at 133MB/s (33.33 MHz × 32 bits ÷ 8 bits/byte = 133 MB/s) (got this from wikipedia). If you want to raise your bandwidth get a pci-express card, which according to wikipedia has a theoretical bandwidth of 2.5Gigabits/s (312.5 MB/s).

thats my two cents.

 

[Trance183]

well i guess i'm 2 cents richer now, lol. thanks dude.

 

[mfurse]

I find it invaluable for configuring routers and switches and then having to go to the web to source a solution - otherwise I would be unplugging and replugging everything in to find the solution - with dual NIC's no router-router IP conflicts and I can use a discrete subnet for the router I am configuring - pretty useful really.

Matt

 

[JonathanDeane]

Also if you wanted to go through the hastle you could set up a shared connection and then you wouldnt need to buy a router to set up 2 PC's to be online... I dont recomend this as its a pain to set up and keep working but some people use it im sure I personaly would just recomend watching like Tiger Direct or Newegg for the deals they have on routers I got a Wireless G router with a 4 port switch for $4.95 lol

 

[michaelahess]

If the built in nics are on the pci-e bus you have less to worry about, but even then 2 gigabit ethernet ports will usually work quite well over 127MB PCI bus, as a single gige port will only use at most 90-100 of that (if you're lucky), and unless you do massive file transfers on both all the time it won't saturate and if you only used them for internet there's nothing at all that will max it. Unless you have a couple DS3's at home

I use the second port for my gige connection between my 2 main machines and my HTPC so they have dedicated connections for video transfers. They just use a different subnet over the regular lan so as to not interfere. You do have to watch out and not set a default gateway on both, windows hates that. You'd have to use a third party app to get bandwidth sharing for two internet connections. I use a pfsense firewall for my two cable modems and I could setup load balancing, but one is for my internal lan, the other is for my website and email servers.

Most load balancing doesn't give you the bandwidth of both at once, it divies out connections, one connection to the first modem, the next to the second modem, etc. So if I load balance my 8mb and 3mb modems I won't get 11mb available for a download for example.

 

[chuckshissle]

ok, so of course we now have motherboards with two ethernet ports. does anyone know what the benefits are? i only use one port, but can someone give me a real life example of how we can take advantage of dual ethernet?

In that case I'll answer your question with a another question.

What's the point of having two balls?

 

[Trance183]

well considering we can't network our balls with any other balls, its pointless. but they CAN contribute to a network. . thanks for the input dudes.

 

[chuckshissle]

True, but Lance Armstrong (who has one ball by the way) beat hundreds of other two balled cyclist for several years in a row. Anyway my point is I don't really know but two is better than one right. As for my case I used one for networking and the other for my local network/LAN as sometimes me and my bro fight it out with CSS and BF2.

 

[1Tanker]

i see, so would it be possible to have 2 internet connections from two difference sources and have twice the download bandwith or speed?

Try a download accelerator...they can work well with some setups. I use

Fresh Download.

 

[1Tanker]

True, but Lance Armstrong (who has one ball by the way) beat hundreds of other two balled cyclist for several years in a row. As for my case I used one for networking and the other for my local network/LAN as sometimes me and my bro fight it out with CSS and BF2.

2 what?Now you got us all confuzzled. One ball for networking, and the other

ball for your local network? How's your bike riding skills, BTW.

That would mean it's not a network, but a NUTwork. :lol:

 

[rodney_ws]

ok, so of course we now have motherboards with two ethernet ports. does anyone know what the benefits are? i only use one port, but can someone give me a real life example of how we can take advantage of dual ethernet?

In that case I'll answer your question with a another question.

What's the point of having two balls?
...

 

[hashv2f16]

What's the point of having two balls?

WTH does this have to do with anything

so most of us have two balls. so we can hook em up in SLI?

 

[bmouring]

i see, so would it be possible to have 2 internet connections from two difference sources and have twice the download bandwith or speed?

I know it's possible, but it probably it isn't as easy as you think. First, you need 2 separate connections from the ISP (i.e. 2 cable/dsl modems). Then, you need a bonding driver/app installed, there's one in the linux kernel which is the only way I've played with, so I am sure there are Windows ones available, but really for most people this is more hassle than it's worth.

edit: bonding driver makes 1 virtual network connection from 2, FYI

 

[Trance183]

LMAO!! @ SLI, NUTwork, & Mr. Armstrong. Well i was really curious to see what I can use my dual ethernet ports for and now i seem to have a pretty good idea, but i'll be experimenting for now. thanks again.[/quote]

 

[1Tanker]

LMAO!! @ SLI, NUTwork, & Mr. Armstrong. Well i was really curious to see what I can use my dual ethernet ports for and now i seem to have a pretty good idea, but i'll be experimenting for now. thanks again.

[/quote]
Experimenting with you balls?? Too much info!

 

[JonathanDeane]

Oh yeah well I run a quad SLI Nutwork !!! lol

 

[chuckshissle]

What's the point of having two balls?

WTH does this have to do with anything

so most of us have two balls. so we can hook em up in SLI?

none :lol:

 

[sadsephiroth]

You can bridge two network connections. And if done properly, you can get about 10.5 from 3 and 8. Also, two crossbacks for file transfer faster than the drives can go.

 

[djkrypplephite]

well considering we can't network our balls with any other balls, its pointless. but they CAN contribute to a network. . thanks for the input dudes.

Um, you can't network with your balls? I'm sorry dude, but you're missing out on some sweet bandwidth.

 

[telim]

If you have two comps, you can easily use two Internet sources to download stuff really quickly.

Simply connect your "storage" box (aka server) to 1 internet source, and use it's 2nd nic to connect to the internal home network. Just don't assign a GATEWAY for this 2nd NIC, so that it will not attempt to use the internet on that 2nd nic...

Then your main box (game box, or whatever) uses the other internet connection and this is routed thru the internal home network.

Now you can save stuff from both internet connections onto one computer. With a little effort you can split up a torrent within Azureus and aggregate your bandwidth on one torrent that way.

Then when the torrent is done you can seed with both internet connections, but using the same file (off of the server).