Ethernet card with 2 ports

Hamster

Hamster

Hamster

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I'm looking for an ethernet card with 2 ports, each of which would be recognised by windows as a separate NIC with its own MAC address. The only reasonable costing ones i have seen are from US sellers on ebay (Compaq 10/100 dual port cards, part no. 338478-001). Will they do the job and work in the same way as 2 separate single port cards?
 
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Yes, and Yes.

They show up as 2 seperate cards, you'll probably find the MAC Address are sequential (I have found this in all the multiport cards I've used).

Are you looking for 10/100 or Gigabit and is it PCI, PCI-X or PCI-e??
 
Thanks for replying. I'll be using it on an old Shuttle system which only has one spare PCI slot. Ideally i would like a gigabit card but from the looks of things they are over £100. I don't really want to spend that much on it so the 10/100 will probably be the best option unless of course the gigabit cards can be had for similar money which is unlikely!!

:)
 
You can find various version of Intel PRO/1000 cards on an auction site for not very much money. Dual port ones available for standard PCI iirc.
 
Thats how far behind PC stuff I am, only card I thought had more than one poer was the old hub cards...remeber them?

10Mb only......them were the days, might look into these dual NIC cards!

/apologies for the threadjack!
 
Theres quad port gigabit ones too, Intel Pro/1000 Based, theres also plenty of dual Pro/100's knocking about, i have several in various machines, they can be had for next to nothing.
 
I was going to suggest the same thing - Intel Pro/100 or Pro/1000 is the way to go.
There is currently a Pro/1000 MT Dual Port PCI-X card on a certain auction site.
I'm not sure on the rules about posting links to other sites, so I wont.
However, if you search for "PWLA8492MT" it's the only one listed.

It is in Hong Kong, and costs about £28 with delivery. It is low height PCI-X card with half and full height backplanes and that SHOULD fit in a PCI slot provided there is nothing blocking the back of the PCI slot to allow the card to over hang..... I currently have the Intel Pro/100 Quad PCI-X card in a PCI slot in my Compaq XW6000 workstation and it's working great.
 
Dual Gigabit is pointless over PCI. PCI barely has enough bandwidth to handle a single gigabit card strectching it's legs let alone two. Unless you need gigabit for HD streaming etc then i'd go for a dual 10/100. Dual gigabit requires PCI-E to work properly.
 
Skidilliplop said:
Dual Gigabit is pointless over PCI. PCI barely has enough bandwidth to handle a single gigabit card strectching it's legs let alone two. Unless you need gigabit for HD streaming etc then i'd go for a dual 10/100. Dual gigabit requires PCI-E to work properly.
Click to expand...

Assuming these figures below that I found on the net are correct, PCI32 66MHz would be fine for dual gigabit no? It would use the whole capacity of the bus but given that a shuttle usually only has one PCI slot that's not a problem. It obviously depends what PCI bus version is used in the Shuttle the OP has

PCI32 33MHz = 133MB/s = 1064Mbps
PCI32 66MHz = 266MB/s = 2128Mbps <---would be enough for dual gigabit
PCI64 33MHz = 266MB/s = 2128Mbps
PCI64 66MHz = 533MB/s = 4264Mbps
PCI-X 133MHz = 1066MB/s = 8528Mbps

Or am I off the mark and it would actually require >4000Mbps for full duplex operation?
 
you would be correct gigabit is natively FDX. So you can theoretically transfer 135MB/s in both directions. That BW requirement is above that of the theoretical BW of standard PCI slots. Hence why most proper gigabit cards are PCI-E/PCI-X. PCI is fine for a simple server as the disks won't excede about 60MB/s sustained. But if you want routing/bridging facilities you'll need the full whack on both ports which needs 1000mbps per port each direction.
 
Phil,
I sent you an email but not sure if it got to you as Outlook is giving me some problems at the moment.

:)
 
Col_M said:
Assuming these figures below that I found on the net are correct, PCI32 66MHz would be fine for dual gigabit no? It would use the whole capacity of the bus but given that a shuttle usually only has one PCI slot that's not a problem. It obviously depends what PCI bus version is used in the Shuttle the OP has

PCI32 33MHz = 133MB/s = 1064Mbps
PCI32 66MHz = 266MB/s = 2128Mbps <---would be enough for dual gigabit
PCI64 33MHz = 266MB/s = 2128Mbps
PCI64 66MHz = 533MB/s = 4264Mbps
PCI-X 133MHz = 1066MB/s = 8528Mbps

Or am I off the mark and it would actually require >4000Mbps for full duplex operation?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! Not sure what PCI bus the Shuttle has. It's an SN45G.
 
Skidilliplop said:
you would be correct gigabit is natively FDX. So you can theoretically transfer 135MB/s in both directions. That BW requirement is above that of the theoretical BW of standard PCI slots. Hence why most proper gigabit cards are PCI-E/PCI-X. PCI is fine for a simple server as the disks won't excede about 60MB/s sustained. But if you want routing/bridging facilities you'll need the full whack on both ports which needs 1000mbps per port each direction.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, never thought about the fact the disks give up a long time before the bandwidth ran out!!
 
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