Ethernet Network Trunking

FEC - Fast Ether Channel is supported by a chipset on the NIC and Switch.

Typically it is a protocol used between switches to increase aggregate bandwidth. The intel driver will provide the needed software for WinNT/2K and possibly Novell. You'd have to check if Linux is supported.

Originally developed to work with Cisco Ethernet Switchec, many network companies support the standard, however take your pick and chances with them. Not sure about NIC-NIC crossover FEC - I think you need to home to a switch.

On the face of it, a neat solution, but it is problematic, tends to lose 1 interface every so often and generally _can_ be a little flakey.

If you have an NT class machine regularly hiting the 100Mbs limit (check - it is not THAT often in an enterprise environment that you would), either split your network segments and multihome it, upgrade to a GigE NIC or split the data between two servers. If it is that mission critical, I wouldn't use a 'fudge' such as FEC on it.

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