Two nics in one machine, does it make a difference?

[Intelman07]

I have seen some people talking about this. I don't think it would make a difference at all. The internet wouldn't be faster. What is the second nic good for?

 

[EKAtBzboyz]

probably using the computer as a hub/router
ive seen a motherboard even with 2 onboard nics

 

[optimistic]

They are using it for ICS. Intenet connection sharing. One NIC to accpet the internet, the other to distribute it to the network. Works like a router.

 

[smadavid]

On a server, it can be good for several things... the cards can work together to create a single connection with double the bandwidth or more (depending on how many cards are used). Also, for redundancy -- if one card fails, the connection doesn't go down. Of course all of this is pretty much just for servers, doesn't do much for workstations. ICS is a popular use as already mentioned.

 

[Intelman07]

Originally posted by: smadavid
On a server, it can be good for several things... the cards can work together to create a single connection with double the bandwidth or more (depending on how many cards are used). Also, for redundancy -- if one card fails, the connection doesn't go down. Of course all of this is pretty much just for servers, doesn't do much for workstations. ICS is a popular use as already mentioned.

I have two nics on one of my servers. I just disabled one and used 1. Can you really make them work together to create a single connection with double the bandwidth? (over the network as well as the internet)

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Both the network cards and the hub need to support it. Intel pro/100+ cards do, as do Intel's high-end switches.

This said, with the price of gigabit dropping, it's quickly becoming obsolete.

 

[Ark]

My old company server had multiple NICs to have 2 independent networks on one sever

 

[Wolfsraider]

i use my two nics for :
dsl modem connection
networking two computers
this way i can share the dsl on both computers

mike

 

[beverage]

Originally posted by: optimistic
They are using it for ICS. Intenet connection sharing. One NIC to accpet the internet, the other to distribute it to the network. Works like a router.

I was wondering if this worked... I guess it does!

 

[dszd0g]

As has been said, this is generally done to configure the machine as a router.

In the case of servers there are a few different uses. In the corporate environment one can disable routing on the machine and install multiple network cards hooked up on multiple subnets. This is called a multi-homed server. If one is doing large network backups this is often necessary as backups across a corporate backbone can kill it. One does have to be careful about not creating loops (unless one enjoys mass broadcasts and bringing a network to its knees). Also one can use multiple network cards on the same subnet if the switch and operating system support it (Windows Servers support it as long as DHCP is not used, but who would configure a server as a DHCP client), this is generally referred to as "trunking." Some special server multi-port NICs can load balance without trunking.

 

[JimKiler]

I use 2 NIC's for ICS

Although my buddy used 3 for his cable modem and using linux he did get extra badnwidth ( he had to get 3 cable modems from his ISP) and he said it worked great, they didn't even charge him that much for the second and third modems.