Dual Gigabit LAN- worth plugging in two cables?

[headbox]

Hello- easy question for you network experts. I have two computers with dual gigabit LAN ports. Will I get double the network speed if I connect both to my router (two computers using 4 ports) or does the computer treat them as two separate connections... or will it cause conflicts?

Thanks!

 

[JackMDS]

Nope, Entry level Network hardware and Client OS' are not design to team.

You would have to overcome the psychological dismay that you have an Hardware component that there is No use for it.

 

[mxnerd]

If the computers have server board (not generic brand desktop) or the likes and got Intel / broadcom chipset, then probably yes, but you have to download the drivers for them.

It can be either failover or load balance, but not both, like what JackMDS said, it's called teaming and you assgin both ports with only one IP. That's how I understand it.

If the network chip is Realtek, then no, a BIG NO.

-----

For JackMDS, if I wanted to use teaming feature, do I have to use special kind of switch? Or generic switch will do? And please correct me if my above reply for headbox is wrong.


Thanks.

 

[bobdole369]

Nope. Unless ur PC is ridiculous (scsi RAID 5 x 12 disks and a cpu based RAID card PCIx-64) you won't come close to saturating a single gigabit connection.

Actually most PC's can't quite saturate 100mbit yet.

The second NIC is in case the first one breaks..... LOL actually you can do some cool things like turn ur PC into a router with 2 NICs.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: bobdole369
Nope. Unless ur PC is ridiculous (scsi RAID 5 x 12 disks and a cpu based RAID card PCIx-64) you won't come close to saturating a single gigabit connection.

Actually most PC's can't quite saturate 100mbit yet.

The second NIC is in case the first one breaks..... LOL actually you can do some cool things like turn ur PC into a router with 2 NICs.

Lol? 100mbps = 12MB/s. Show me a mainstream HDD that can't push 12MB/s read/write.

 

[mcmilljb]

The second port is there incase the first one breaks

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: bobdole369
Nope. Unless ur PC is ridiculous (scsi RAID 5 x 12 disks and a cpu based RAID card PCIx-64) you won't come close to saturating a single gigabit connection.

Actually most PC's can't quite saturate 100mbit yet.

The second NIC is in case the first one breaks..... LOL actually you can do some cool things like turn ur PC into a router with 2 NICs.

Lol? 100mbps = 12MB/s. Show me a mainstream HDD that can't push 12MB/s read/write.

Show me any modern NIC that isn't 1000 Base-T.

 

[mxnerd]

Originally posted by: bobdole369
Nope. Unless ur PC is ridiculous (scsi RAID 5 x 12 disks and a cpu based RAID card PCIx-64) you won't come close to saturating a single gigabit connection.

Actually most PC's can't quite saturate 100mbit yet.

The second NIC is in case the first one breaks..... LOL actually you can do some cool things like turn ur PC into a router with 2 NICs.

3 disk sata raid 5 passed 1G mark easily.

And if one of the NICs is dead, how do you turn it into router?

 

[mcmilljb]

Originally posted by: mxnerd

Originally posted by: bobdole369
Nope. Unless ur PC is ridiculous (scsi RAID 5 x 12 disks and a cpu based RAID card PCIx-64) you won't come close to saturating a single gigabit connection.

Actually most PC's can't quite saturate 100mbit yet.

The second NIC is in case the first one breaks..... LOL actually you can do some cool things like turn ur PC into a router with 2 NICs.

3 disk sata raid 5 passed 1G mark easily.

And if one of the NICs is dead, how do you turn it into router?

I don't think he was saying you could use it as a router if it breaks... That's going to be an expensive router plus you'll need a switch if you want more than one connection.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: bobdole369
Nope. Unless ur PC is ridiculous (scsi RAID 5 x 12 disks and a cpu based RAID card PCIx-64) you won't come close to saturating a single gigabit connection.

Actually most PC's can't quite saturate 100mbit yet.

The second NIC is in case the first one breaks..... LOL actually you can do some cool things like turn ur PC into a router with 2 NICs.

Lol? 100mbps = 12MB/s. Show me a mainstream HDD that can't push 12MB/s read/write.

Show me any modern NIC that isn't 1000 Base-T.

Sure most computers will be using a gigabit NIC, but that's not what I was contesting. The statement that a computer can't saturate a 100mbps link is just wrong. If a computer couldn't saturate it then there would be no point in 1000mbps NIC's for a PC.

 

[JackMDS]

Unlike 24/7 Cable News that provide information based on verbal manipulliation rather than facts, technolgy is based on functional factors.

The Network, its software, and devices need to support Teaming.

Just having two NICs on whatever type of board and drivers does Not support Teaming on regular home Network using Client OS.

Client OS means Windows XP/2000, Vista (x32, or x64), etc. Server OS means Windows 2003/2008 or any other real server OS.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Teaming support requires "Link Aggregation" feature on the switch, and most unmanaged switches DO NOT have this feature. So while it may be a gee-whiz feature to advertise on motherboards, you have to splash out some decent money for networking gear to take advantage, and even then, you may be hard-pressed to find a real use for it. Most HDs can't even keep up with 1Gbit port, never mind a 2Gbit port.

 

[bobdole369]

Simple.

Just because you've reached the speed limit of about 11megabytes/second doesn't mean its saturated. To be saturated the switch needs full buffers and start dropping reply packets because of no bandwidth availability. It's not just "transferring a file", but thousands of connections stretching the switching backplane to its limit and bringing the switch to its knees.

For an example: Loopback a cable into your unmanaged switch and send out a few broadcasts. Before too long it'll be saturated.

When your transferring a file from PC to PC and reached the limit of speed the switch still has resources left, and applications can actually throttle it back because traffic is still passing through. It isn't saturated at that point just - at its speed limit. A saturated switch cannot reliably pass traffic. It just croaks until the traffic dies down.

Most PC's can't saturate a 100mbit connection. But a loopback cable might

 

[headbox]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I work with a small animation team of 6 people and everyone accesses files on one server computer. Some are only doing photoshop so there's not much need for bandwidth (the PSD being loaded into RAM), but others are using After Effects and working in HD. Not wanting to spend the $ for fiber channel, I was wondering if the existing computers would benefit from connecting the 2nd port. They are Realtek 8111B- doh!

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: headbox
Thanks for the comments everyone. I work with a small animation team of 6 people and everyone accesses files on one server computer. Some are only doing photoshop so there's not much need for bandwidth (the PSD being loaded into RAM), but others are using After Effects and working in HD. Not wanting to spend the $ for fiber channel, I was wondering if the existing computers would benefit from connecting the 2nd port. They are Realtek 8111B- doh!

Please hire a professional to do this. Your industry is best served by a high capacity network and only a professional can help you with this. This is not for amateurs.

I know it sound condescending, but I've done enough work in animation and pre-press and seen enough damage. Get a pro to do this for you.

To put it simply, a pro can make your what used to be 2-3 day jobs into 2-3 minutes.

 

[Madwand1]

Actually, some Realtek NICs do support teaming under Windows, but getting the right NICs, drivers, etc., is another matter, let alone getting the desired performance after all that cost and effort. This is a conceptually simple idea that generally fails badly in practice when approached from the client end. The server end is logically a much better one to start with, and then the problem extends more generally to the performance of the servers.