[SOLVED] two pcs on lan, can I add a 2nd ethernet between just them for extra speed

[rocket88]

Hi,

I just built a new pc using an asrock MB (z690 extreme + i7 12700k cpu) which has 2 ethernet sockets, a 1gb and a 2.5 gb. I regularly transfer files between this new pc and another older pc on my lan. The speeds are about 95 MB/s, as expected.

Here's my idea and question: If I buy a 2.5 pcie nic for the older computer, so it now would have both 1gb and 2.5gb, and I get a cat8 cable and connect the two 2.5's together, can I get at least the 2.5 between them, and even better, use both and get 3.5? The nic I'm looking at is at amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08V1HG47H

The 2 pcs are currently connected via a 1gb switch, which also goes to my router and then the internet. The asrock computer is connected using its 1gb ethernet, so the 2.5 is unused for now.

Each system is running win 10 pro.

 

[USAFRet]

You are massively over complicating things, for no real gain.

And no, you can't "add" gigabit + 2.5 and get 3.5.

 

[rocket88]

You are massively over complicating things, for no real gain.

And no, you can't "add" gigabit + 2.5 and get 3.5.

wow, that was a fast reply. Wouldn't it be worth it to get at least 2.5. I'm often transfering 20gbytes or more at a time (either large video files or VMs).

I saw a youtube video where someone was pushing some software that claimed to be able to combine the two for added speed, a commercial product, not freeware.

 

[USAFRet]

Currently, how long does it take to transfer a "20GB file" from 1 system to the other?

What you're looking to do adds complexity, in having to switch which port you're going to use at any one time.

As far as the combine thing? Be really really suspect of what you see on utube., Especially when they're selling something.

 

[bill001g]

It will likely be simpler and not much more costly to buy 10gbit cards for both machines. There is not a huge difference in price between 10gbit and 2.5 and you can get used cards likely for less. 10gbit has been used in commercial equipment for more than 10years so there is lots of used stuff laying around.
2.5g is really only used in home user machines.

Likely the much more expensive issue is the disk systems in the 2 machines likely will bottleneck you. Unless you have something like SSD in both machines you likely are not going to get much benefit out of faster network access.

It is also going to be a pain to directly connect the machines unless you plan to not have a internet connection.

 

[rocket88]

Currently, how long does it take to transfer a "20GB file" from 1 system to the other?

A transfer of 20-30gb takes 3-5 minutes. Would love to get that under a minute.

I have 25 and now 35 gb ram-disks on each system (new one has 64gb ram but I'm getting another 64gb once I'm sure it's stable).

I often copy a 20gb VM into a ramdisk just to try stuff out. The VMs live on the old system (rock solid stable) and I plan on copying them to the ram-disk on the new system over the Ethernet, but that 1gb is the bottleneck now.

I also transfer large video files from a tivo into a ramdisk, where I do several stages of processing (video redo, handbrake etc.). With this new, much faster system I'm looking at getting it to do some of my video pipelining.

I'm retired and just love to tinker. Keeps the mind active. I write a lot of network code in tcl/tk so it should be fun to include this new system.

What you're looking to do adds complexity, in having to switch which port you're going to use at any one time.

As far as the combine thing? Be really really suspect of what you see on utube., Especially when they're selling something.

Well, this is why I'm asking it here, where the experts live

 

[rocket88]

It will likely be simpler and not much more costly to buy 10gbit cards for both machines. There is not a huge difference in price between 10gbit and 2.5 and you can get used cards likely for less. 10gbit has been used in commercial equipment for more than 10years so there is lots of used stuff laying around.
2.5g is really only used in home user machines.

Likely the much more expensive issue is the disk systems in the 2 machines likely will bottleneck you. Unless you have something like SSD in both machines you likely are not going to get much benefit out of faster network access.

It is also going to be a pain to directly connect the machines unless you plan to not have a internet connection.

Thanks, I took a quick look into the 10gbit on Amazon. I didn't find any boards that would likely fit in my older system (a gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A) that has only 2 PCI Express x1 slots available (pci2.0). Its one x16 has a gpu card.

The asrock board has 4 pcie slots, one x16, two x4's and one x1 (pci3.0). I'm using the x16 and one x4 for 2 graphics cards.

I'll keep looking, but I suspect my older system won't be able to go 10gbit (it's not bad for a i7-4790k though).

Maybe it would work with 2.5 if I got a 2.5gb switch for the 2 machines, with a 3rd connection going to my current 1gb switch which also goes to the router/internet.

2.5 would still be faster than the 1.0 by a bit, and except for the 2.5 switch, the prices aren't going to break the bank. Maybe a used 2.5 switch could work.

Thanks for your suggestion.

 

[bill001g]

You are going to have lots of issues if you try to use both ports. Maybe you can get it to work hooking the 2 machines together directly on both ports and using special software. You would not have internet access though.

If you use a switch and have both ports somehow connected you will very likely get a broadcast loop and take down your whole network.

If the other machine is only going to talk to this main one and nothing else you could connect them with the 2.5g ports directly and hook the 1gbit port to the internet. With careful setup you would have 2 different networks and it would work fine. You in effect have a data storage network and a internet.

You could also just use the 2.5g port and hook it all to a switch and ignore the 1gbit port. This would the simplest option.

 

[rocket88]

Thanks for the replies. I got a 2.5 switch (a bit expensive at $150, but...) and that $28 card for my older machine. It was a bit of a pain to change my router settings given 2 new mac addresses and my use of dhcp address reservations. A few reboots of the router and both machines and they all talk together and the 2.5 switch plugs into the 1gb switch to get to the internet.

To get the best performance, I had to download the latest realtek driver since the windows plug and play driver was from 2015 and the latest are from this year. After I installed that one (the new computer had a recent driver via asrock's auto updater) I copied a 21 gig VM between the computers and windows copy says it was transferring at 260 MBytes/sec new machine to old, and a bit faster the other way. The transfer now takes only 1 minute and 20 seconds.

I'm gonna take everyone's advice and leave well enough alone. After all, I'm only getting about 480 MB/s from my sata SSD's to the ramdisk. I guess one day I'll have to look into an m.2 ssd.

Thanks again!