?Best way 2 Network 2 PCs together that arnt on the internet

[fishquail]

I want to be able to Network together 2 workstations that arent conected to the internet, so I can share files back and forth. And do this as fast as possible.

These two computers are used for video editing. Most of the time they are not connected to the internet in order to save recources and also so I can edit without having a firewall or antivirus running at the same time. That way I know Im always safe from the risk of a virus ruining a clients project.
So the Ethernet jacks are available. Also I have heard of USB 2 cable conecting the 2 together. - Which is best, faster?

My hope is to be able to have a project and be editing differnt parts of it on 2 machines, and then render the entire thing out on one machine. I know this is possible but dont know what I need or how to do it. Specs follow. thanks.

---------------------------------------------
Workstation 1:
Tyan Thunder K8WE w/ dual Opteron 270s.
2 gigs of Corsar RAM.

Workstation 2:
ABIT IC7-G w/ Pentium 4, 3GHZ
2 gigs of Corsar RAM. Matrox RTX100.

 

[Madwand]

Regarding speed, it would be gigabit > {firewire, usb2} > fast ethernet.

Your HD performance will also come into play, putting the upper limit on your file transfer performance typically under max gigabit, and within {firewire, usb2}. All of these will typically be at least 3x faster than regular "fast" 100 Mb/s ethernet.

Your computers have nice built-in gigabit, so this is the way to go.

As I understand it now, the gigabit standard requires support for direct cable connection without using crossover cables, so you shouldn't even need to get a special LAN cable -- a standard straight-through cat 5e should be fine. (In short runs, cat 5 would probably be just fine too, but cat 5e is officially recommended.)

Once wired, to network the two computers together, you could set up a DHCP server, etc. (*), or just assign the network adapters static IP's. E.g 192.168.3.1 for one, and 192.168.3.2 for the other. You'd need to learn about drive sharing and rights granting, and ideally for simplicity have admin access to both computers with the same login and password. You might need to enable sharing / turn off simplified sharing / (re-) enable the default administrative share on the C drive or whichever drive you wish to access.

[code:1:9266d2863b]
net use K: //192.168.3.2/C$

There's a quirk in the web software here, which keeps on stripping back slashes, so I've used forward slashes in the above example to stand for back slashes. I can't even show you a back slash, because it gets stripped. Use the slashes typically above the Enter key with |, not the slashes on the ? key, when you try this command/syntax.
[/code:1:9266d2863b]

Running the above in a command line on the first machine (IP 192.168.3.1) (with the proper back slashes) would assign the drive letter K to the root of the C drive (C$ would be built-in administrative share for the root of the C: drive). You can also do this from the Map network drive tool.

Thereafter, you could access the remote C: drive as the local K: drive.

You should also be able to use the computer name instead of the IP address, but sometimes you can't and the IP address should always be usable.

Do a similar mapping on the second machine to access drives on the first machine from it.

(*) Now, to get fancier, and to be able to connect to the internet sometimes, you could set up Windows Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) on the machine with 2 NIC's, connect one NIC to the internet (when you want it, disconnect it usually), and the 2nd NIC to the second computer as a client.

 

[fredweston]

I agree gigabit would be the easiest and probably best. But you don't need to bother with the DHCP server and all that. Windows has a handy function called APIPA (automatic private IP addressing), which will assign each PC an IP address when it can't contact a DHCP server. It works just fine, I don't know why more people don't use it in scenarios like this where the IP range assigned has no bearing whatsoever.

As for the cable, 5E is the minimum I've ever seen recommended for Gig-E. 5 might be able to do it at short distances as suggested, but since the cost is probably the same, just go with 5E. You probably can't even buy Cat5 patch cables retail anymore.

 

[blue68f100]

APIPA first I heard of it (XP Home). Is it only in XP Pro? And where may it be found? Do you need to manualy need to startup a service?

 

[knudsen]

You don't have to find it and execute it, it jus truns automatically when it doesn't find a DHCP server. You could plug an XP home box into an otherwise unused switch and release and renew the IP to see if it gets a funny lookin' IP. If it does, XP home has it too.

 

[blue68f100]

What do you mean by funny?

Will it be a private IP address?

 

[fredweston]

It'll be 169.254.x.x. I don't know why Microsoft chose that range, because as far as I know, it's not a private range, not according to RFC1918 anyway. As knudsen said, it's just something built into the IP stack of Windows since at least Windows 98. If it can't get a lease, it just makes up an address and uses it. Technically a conflict could occur, but chances are, you'll only have 2 hosts and a pool of over 65,000 possible addresses, so it's rare.

 

[blue68f100]

Nice, will try that next time I get my crossover cable out.

 

[knudsen]

What do you mean by funny?

Will it be a private IP address?

Sorry, Blue, I'm such a sleepy head today. I meant to explain that in the post :roll: My bad.

It is funny to me because it is an address not normally used on my network. So it stands out like a sore thumb and I know I don't have communication with DHCP. I don't know if that varies with the network or ??? and I don't know if it would be available on XP home.

Disclaimer: I know enuf 2 B dangerous. Therefore, I am a dangerous person. It's best to stay away from me.

 

[blue68f100]

There is one IP when no connection is available, but it is always the same on both pc's.

 

[knudsen]

that seems kinda useless. I can punch in conflicting IP's all on my own! :twisted: not a big deal to punch in a pair of static IP's.

back to da thrtead, just use 192.168.x.1 and 192.168.x.2 and all is good. x = 1 to 254.