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Dual NIC in Server

owensdj

Golden Member
If a Windows Server 2003 machine has two built-in Gigabit ethernet ports, do I need to disable the 2nd one if the server is only going to be connected to one subnet? Can I just leave the 2nd one unplugged? Thanks.
 
I would.

Great care and understanding of networking and routing needs to be taken into account when using more than one network card. Most of the times it is done incorrectly and causes all sorts of problems.

If you need redundancy you could (depending on the NIC) setup a fail on fault scenario where both NICs are attached to two different switches on the same subnet. One nic is "down" and not operating as long as the primary has a link. If the primary loses link, then the secondary takes over.
 
Yes, of course. Also, if the NICs support teaming, you can configure the secondary NIC as a failover.
 
Best practice to disable any unused NICs. If you need either failover or throughput, look at teaming options.
 
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