Multi Network with dual nics

[immiller]

Hi! I'm new here and was reading around and figured this is the place I should ask my question. It is moderatly indepth I'll do my best explaining everything.

What I am looking to do is seperate my lan traffic from my wan traffic. The amount of Lan traffic is slowing my Internet connection. The media server is the host of all my music and movies and photos and well just about everything, Some of the files are excessivly large and just kill the throughput for the other machines. I'm wondering if it's possible to put 2 NICS in each machine and have all file transfers on one subnet and all internet activities on another. I have heard it's possible to put multiple addies on a single nic but doesn't this defeat the purpose of thru put? Now this isn't exactly critical I do this I'm just looking at options as it's a family thing not a business.




Network 1 - one line diagram
Internet
Cable modem
Router/wifi
Switch 1
6 PC's 1 Media/file/print server.

All pc's and wifi use this to access internet, and all outside connections like remote desktop.

Network 2 - one line diagram
Switch 2
6 PC's, 1 Media/file/print server.

All pc's use this to stream audio and video from the media server as well as print functions and file storage.

What are the pro's and con's of doing this? I have most of the hardware already except the additional nics for each machine. so if it's not feasible I'll not waste the extra monies.

Thank you

 

[Emerald]

there is really no way for you to control which NIC is use to transfer the data since all computers connect to each other through both networks

 

[immiller]

hummm. well thats disappointing. I was thinking maybe have 2 network groups and map them from only one group. thank you for your response, do you have any suggestions?


Edit*
I guess what I'm wondering is there a network design that will work with this thought?
example of what is happening/ and what i'd like to solve.

happening
Pc1 is transfering a 50 GB video file to the file server. perfect world it maxes around 85% of total network bandwidth,
Pc2 is watching a streaming video gets choppy while pc1 is transfering.

answer
pc1 is transfering a 50gb video file to file server. transfering at max.
pc2 is watching a straming video. no buffering

Something just clicked in my head... is it possible this could be resolved with a high end switch? I'm almost positive that end user switches don't offer the same degree of thru-put. still thinking...

 

[Catsrules]

What is your network speed?

If your transferring that much data I would recommend Gigabit Ethernet.

happening
Pc1 is transfering a 50 GB video file to the file server. perfect world it maxes around 85% of total network bandwidth,
Pc2 is watching a streaming video gets choppy while pc1 is transfering.

Is PC2 streaming video video from the internet or your file server?

 

[immiller]

It is Gigabit and it really depends most of the time streaming from the internet but also from the server. I think I found my area of oppurtunity, just got to figure out how to measure it, I think my switch isn't capable of the throughput. it's not a managed switch so still brain storming.

 

[Catsrules]

What is the model of the switch? It is a sad switch if it gets overloaded with 1 high bandwidth connection. Maybe something is wrong with it? Like the power adapter is going out or something.

So PC2 also stutters from streaming over the internet when pc1 is transferring?
I am just trying to rule out the server as being over loaded. My media server did that, when one computer is streaming a video from it and another is copying a lot of files to it, the steam would get choppy. I think it ended up being the hard drive couldn't keep up. So I put in a 7200RPM one and it does better now.