recommend please!!!!

[SIRCOOKS]

im looking for a router that shares files. i allready have a cable/dsl router on my system, and a hub, but the hub always kicks out on me. i have 4 nic cards between 2 comps (2 each), im looking for a router maybe just to handle the transferring of my files, can anyone recommend anything...holla back

[SIRCOOKS]

what good is this

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=329623&CatId=0

[Soopafresh]

Yeah, that's fine. Why 2 NICs in each PC ?

[SIRCOOKS]

one dedicated to internet, the other to transferring files

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

I don't see the need to avoid using one router for both Internet and home LAN file sharing. But if you must, consider using a crossover cable between the NICs you intend for LAN file sharing. Why use a router if you don't need to?

[SIRCOOKS]

so what your saying is, since i have an extra nic in each comp, just simply attach the crossover cables to the nic card, but how then do i configure it to pick up on each comp

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

I'm not sure on that myself, but if you disconnect PCs from the router, they will be forced to use the crossover cable connection. Once that is established you should be able to reconnect the router for Internet use.

I used a crossover cable years ago, but I've forgotten most of what I knew. (grin) I plan to do this in a few weeks with 1000Mbps NICs, tho...

[SIRCOOKS]

im gonna borrow a switch, and try both ways, i just will choose the quicker one

[reboot]

Use the crossover and install netbeui for LAN.
Separate TCP/IP for internet only, through your router/hub.
Simpler would be to scrap the double nic idea, and get a good router.

[ozymango]

Are you currently using a hub or a switch as your connection point? I don't think the router is the issue; if you're using a separate router and hub, your hub is the issue -- your router is just used to connect to the internet and assign IP addresses to the computers on the network. Hubs don't differentiate between nics so each nic is getting all the data moving across the network. Then they reject what isn't meant for them, so you end up with a lot of traffic and collisions that slow things down.

A switch is "smart" in that it switches (hence the name) each port so traffic destined for one computer only goes to that one computer. You get better flow, less collisions, faster network speed. So yeah, the switch you noted in the link would speed things up, if you are currently using a hub as the connection between the two computers.

And I suppose you could use multiple network cards in each machine but it does require some configuration (like setting one nic for tcp/ip only for internet access and the other nic using netbeui for file sharing only; you can't route netbeui so it also helps protect your network from outsiders) but I don't see this is really gonna help much in terms of speed -- if 100mbs ain't fast enough for moving files and browsing the net at the same time (!), you'd probably be better off investing in some gigabit ethernet stuff, 1000 mbs. You could get gigabit cards for your computers and a gigabit switch, so the file sharing speed between machines is extremely high, and your router is fine at whatever speed it's at because I seriously doubt your internet connection is faster than 10/100. And if it is faster than 10/100, might as well just gigabit stuff all the way around.

[SIRCOOKS]

yes i have currentlyone router for internet and one hub for transferring

[ozymango]

yes i have currentlyone router for internet and one hub for transferring

Then I very much recommend you get a switch and replace your current hub with a switch -- the link you were looking at is one of the switches I have in my own home network and it works great. My guess is, once you hook it up (just plug it in!) you'll notice things working much better and faster. Good luck!

[SIRCOOKS]

thanks man, will buy asap

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

I just installed a gigabit NIC in each of my two PCs, and linked them using a standard patch cable. (One of the NICs features reversable MDI functionality, so I don't need a crossover cable.) My goal is to use 100Mbps NICs for the Internet, and use 1000Mbps NICs for my home LAN. It works--sort of; I'm having trouble getting XP to use each NIC as I've just mentioned. I'm trying to use TCP/IP with both the Net and LAN configurations, which I think I should be able to do. If I have to I'll try NetBEUI for the LAN, but that's for the future. Right now I think my problem might be with my subnet: I use the same one for both my Net and LAN connections. I think I need to use a different subnet for my LAN. I'll let you all know what I come up with.

Oh, I found out that the name for this business is "multihoming", in case you want to Google it and do some research for yerselves....

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

Got my dual NIC 100Mbps/1000Mbps network working, finally. It seems the two most important issues are the subnet and the IP address. I gave the gigabit NICs their own subnet and IPs that were *not* in the range used by the router and the other two NICs. The IP change was the last thing I tried, as I hadn't realized that the IPs couldn't be merely unique. When I put then outside of the router's allocated range of IPs, it worked great. Thanks for all the help folks.