How can I use dual-port NIC in my NAS/HTPC system?

[lnong]

There's a lot of motherboards that are equipped with a NIC that have two (or more) ports, but I fail to grasp how I can use both in a combined NAS/HTPC system. I read that the common/obvious purpose of having multiple ports is for failover or connecting to different network types. But neither of those apply to me. My NAS/HTPC system (to be built) will just be using a motherboard with a single i7 CPU and may run Windows Server or FreeNas. The "NAS" part of it will allow me to store any files I need to backup/store. It would be accessible (read/write file functions) to any laptop on our home WiFi network. I then plan to install some DLNA software like Plex so that the media files in the NAS can additionally be streamed to WiFi clients or be internally fed to my AV/Receiver (through the router). So all this just means one port will be connect to the router, but how can I use the 2nd port?

 

[napster100]

I think your first question should be "do I need dual NICs?".

If you already have the board with dual NICs then you can do a variety of other things, it just depends on your wants and needs. Something else you could do is load balance between them. Or have one strictly for LAN access and another for WAN if you so desire. Maybe you want one machine to have direct access to it in case the router fails? Who knows!

 

[USAFRet]

Mostly, you don't.

If you were using this as a firewall box, OK.
In one port for the WAN, Out the other port for the internal LAN.

Otherwise, you don't really need it.

 

[LinuxDevice]

I use one NIC for the outside world (strong firewalling), another for network devices, e.g., a networked printer. If you were to use external disk storage (an NAS), then you could get much improved performance by giving it its own bandwidth separate from everything else (this assumes other network uses might be sufficiently needy to compete).