Solved A question about placing 2 ethernet adapters on the same network

hsehestedt · May 23, 2024

AnaxylCroft said:
I'll let you know how it goes.

First, welcome to ElevenForum!

Please do let us know. It's always good to hear what someone else's experience is.

AnaxylCroft · May 24, 2024

hsehestedt said:
First, welcome to ElevenForum!

Please do let us know. It's always good to hear what someone else's experience is.

I finally slowed down to test the WiFi adapter addition. It joined my wireless network like a charm, but I think that it Just slams the door on the nics because it's WiFi6 and pulled 520.99 Down and 22.37 Up and my Netgear is an old T100Switch. so it ignored the 2 slower ports. I'm going to take my Netgear out of the mix and see what happens.

I'll be back.

Edit: Well, I was wrong, it is still running all 3 connections, however the nics are doing a very light load. I'll keep it as it is with the Netgear for now, but I will be looking for a newer GB+ Switch in the near future.

jimbo45 · May 25, 2024

hdmi said:
NetLbfo Module

Use this topic to help manage Windows and Windows Server technologies with Windows PowerShell.

learn.microsoft.com

NetSwitchTeam Module

Use this topic to help manage Windows and Windows Server technologies with Windows PowerShell.

learn.microsoft.com

In short, having two NICs installed in a Windows 11 PC causes all existing network connections to be closed by Windows 11 immediately the moment when Windows 11 decides to make the switch, from the NIC that it currently uses, to the other NIC. So, when two NICs are able to be used by it, it automatically chooses the NIC with the highest Connection Priority Order.

Change Network Adapter Interface Connection Priority Order in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to change the network adapter interface connection priority order in Windows 10 and Windows 11. A network adapter (aka: Network Interface Controller (NIC) ) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to the Internet or local area network. A metric...

www.elevenforum.com

It also is why a Windows 11 PC equipped with both a wireless (WLAN) adapter and a LAN adapter cannot be connected via both at once. Windows 11 simply lacks the capacity to do so.

Having 2 NIC's is useful if you use VM's that are heavily used -- Just pass thru one NIC to the VM and use the other one on the Host.

Cheers
jimbo

hdmi · May 25, 2024

jimbo45 said:
Having 2 NIC's is useful if you use VM's that are heavily used -- Just pass thru one NIC to the VM and use the other one on the Host.

I already know that, but the reason why I don't run a VM at home is because, at home, the type of work that I do on my own personal laptops doesn't require a VM, as running Sandboxie-Plus in concert with both PrimoCache and Primo Ramdisk from Romex satisfies all my needs also in addition to giving noticeably better performance for what I need/want, I digress...

The only problem that I can see is that some people on here and elsewhere on the internet seem to still believe that NIC Teaming, also referred to as NIC Bonding, was snuck into Windows 11 somehow by Microsoft (or "snuck back in", so-to-speak, after Microsoft had removed this rumored old "trick" from Windows 10). That, I am afraid, is poppycock. Client versions of Windows simply don't have that feature. On Windows, it is limited to Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, and 2022. Copy a large amount of data over a single NIC, and measure how long it takes. Next, enable this so-called "NIC Teaming on Windows 11" before copying this same large amount of data over the network again, and measure the time again. Does it run faster?

hsehestedt · May 26, 2024

hdmi said:
Does it run faster?

Yes, it does. It runs twice as fast as a single network adapter.

VERY IMPORTANT: In my original post I was very careful to note that this only works if your infrastructure supports it.

Let's use an example. Suppose that I have a gigabit switch with multiple computers connected to it. If I now take one of my computers and connect it to that switch using two gigabit Ethernet adapters, I will see no increase in performance because I can still connect to my other computers at a max speed of one gigabit. Each PC has a bandwidth of only one gigabit and each port on the switch is limited to one gigabit.

Now, assume the same scenario with the following changes: My switch is 2.5 gigabit, and all of my machines are connected using 2.5 gigabit adapters EXCEPT for one machine which has two gigabit Ethernet adapters. If I simultaneously connect two gigabit adapters to my switch, I will get twice the performance as with a single adapter because the machines to which I am connecting, and the switch can accommodate a speed of 2.5 gigabits to any of the other machines. It is also very important that you use fast storage like an SSD so that the storage is not the bottleneck in your testing.

I have now tested and verified this scenario on a minimum of four PCs using Realtek and Intel consumer Ethernet adapters in dual Realtek, dual Intel, and mixed Intel and Realtek adapter configurations. It works every single time.

Furthermore, if I perform a network trace, I can clearly see the traffic being evenly divided between the adapters.

I was surprised by this because this directly contradicted my training as a Microsoft Engineer, but admittedly that was quite a number of years ago.

However, now that I know that this works, I make good use of it. I have a Mini PC that serves as my NAS and Plex server. It's not a super high-end machine, but the storage is SSD, and it has two gigabit Ethernet adapters. I often move very large amounts of data to and from this system. By using two gigabit adapters and having all my other systems running 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, I get a very nice bump in network performance on that little Mini PC vs a single gigabit adapter.

EDIT: For the sake of completeness, I feel that I should point out that this only works with two Ethernet adapters, not an Ethernet and WiFi adapter combo.

Try3 · May 26, 2024

I also use two Ethernet adaptors on my main [Windows 10] computer. I can see that both get used & a significant increase in transfer speed is achieved.

-

The transfer speed is, in my case, limited by the 1Gbps of the sending computer's Ethernet adapter.

My Ethernet adapters are both USB-connected ones. I have tried attaching them both to my Windows 11 computer but it only makes use of one of them at a time.

Denis

hdmi · May 26, 2024

hsehestedt said:
Yes, it does. It runs twice as fast as a single network adapter.

VERY IMPORTANT: In my original post I was very careful to note that this only works if your infrastructure supports it.

Let's use an example. Suppose that I have a gigabit switch with multiple computers connected to it. If I now take one of my computers and connect it to that switch using two gigabit Ethernet adapters, I will see no increase in performance because I can still connect to my other computers at a max speed of one gigabit. Each PC has a bandwidth of only one gigabit and each port on the switch is limited to one gigabit.

Now, assume the same scenario with the following changes: My switch is 2.5 gigabit, and all of my machines are connected using 2.5 gigabit adapters EXCEPT for one machine which has two gigabit Ethernet adapters. If I simultaneously connect two gigabit adapters to my switch, I will get twice the performance as with a single adapter because the machines to which I am connecting, and the switch can accommodate a speed of 2.5 gigabits to any of the other machines. It is also very important that you use fast storage like an SSD so that the storage is not the bottleneck in your testing.

I have now tested and verified this scenario on a minimum of four PCs using Realtek and Intel consumer Ethernet adapters in dual Realtek, dual Intel, and mixed Intel and Realtek adapter configurations. It works every single time.

Furthermore, if I perform a network trace, I can clearly see the traffic being evenly divided between the adapters.

I was surprised by this because this directly contradicted my training as a Microsoft Engineer, but admittedly that was quite a number of years ago.

However, now that I know that this works, I make good use of it. I have a Mini PC that serves as my NAS and Plex server. It's not a super high-end machine, but the storage is SSD, and it has two gigabit Ethernet adapters. I often move very large amounts of data to and from this system. By using two gigabit adapters and having all my other systems running 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, I get a very nice bump in network performance on that little Mini PC vs a single gigabit adapter.

EDIT: For the sake of completeness, I feel that I should point out that this only works with two Ethernet adapters, not an Ethernet and WiFi adapter combo.

Those who do not have a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet router or switch (myself included) should still be able to run a quick easy test to verify if Windows 11 does indeed double the network transfer speed over Ethernet like you say it does, i.e. if two Ethernet adapters of the same speed (instead of only one) are installed in the same PC. This is because it is possible to go in Device Manager, Advanced tab in the Properties panel of each of the two Ethernet adapters, and temporarily change their Speed & Duplex setting to 100 Mbps Full Duplex. If you do that, then if it works like how you say it does, the total speed should now be 200 Mbps, or twice that of having only one Ethernet adapter operating in 100 Mbps Full Duplex mode.

However, you'd have to actually copy a large amount of data and actually measure the time it takes to finish the copy task. That is, NOT just monitor the transfer speed by using performance monitor or similar monitoring tool.

hsehestedt · May 26, 2024

hdmi said:
Those who do not have a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet router or switch (myself included) should still be able to run a quick easy test to verify if Windows 11 does indeed double the network transfer speed over Ethernet like you say it does, i.e. if two Ethernet adapters of the same speed (instead of only one) are installed in the same PC. This is because it is possible to go in Device Manager, Advanced tab in the Properties panel of each of the two Ethernet adapters, and temporarily change their Speed & Duplex setting to 100 Mbps Full Duplex. If you do that, then if it works like how you say it does, the total speed should now be 200 Mbps, or twice that of having only one Ethernet adapter operating in 100 Mbps Full Duplex mode.

However, you'd have to actually copy a large amount of data and actually measure the time it takes to finish the copy task. That is, NOT just monitor the transfer speed by using performance monitor or similar monitoring tool.

Ah yes, a clever idea! I'll have to try that, but I can already tell you with absolute, 100% certainty that this works. I often copy hundreds of gigabytes between machines in a single operation and I've measured this and tested it in multiple ways, and I use it every day on multiple machines and have been doing so for several months now (since Feb 1).

I guarantee that I am correct on this!

hsehestedt · May 26, 2024

One point to consider: A friend just brought up a good point. It is possible that this may not work if the adapter is set to 100Mbps. There are some capabilities on Gigabit that won't work on 100Mbps adapters or when throttled to 100Mbps. I don't know if this is one, but I'll try it at some point soon.

All I can guarantee is that this works on Gigabit with the adapters I tried.

hdmi · May 26, 2024

hsehestedt said:
One point to consider: A friend just brought up a good point. It is possible that this may not work if the adapter is set to 100Mbps. There are some capabilities on Gigabit that won't work on 100Mbps adapters or when throttled to 100Mbps. I don't know if this is one, but I'll try it at some point soon.

All I can guarantee is that this works on Gigabit with the adapters I tried.

This makes me wonder if it would still work if each of both PCs is equipped with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet adapters with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet (unmanaged) switches hooked up in parallel between both PCs.

hsehestedt · May 26, 2024

hdmi said:
This makes me wonder if it would still work if each of both PCs is equipped with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet adapters with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet (unmanaged) switches hooked up in parallel between both PCs.

Good question. I'll test it. My plate is going to be a bit full next couple days so it may be a few days before I completely test.

You have had several good ideas today, so I thank you for that.

Try3 · May 27, 2024

hdmi said:
a quick easy test to verify if Windows 11 does indeed double the network transfer speed

Like I reported in my post #26.

hdmi said:
you'd have to actually copy a large amount of data and actually measure the time it takes to finish the copy task

I copy 5-20GB every day.
My double-Ethernet-adapters routinely achieve 60MB/sec between them.
If I use a single Ethernet adapter, I routinely achieve 30-45MB/sec.
If I use my WiFi ax, I routinely achieve 10-20MB/sec.
I did once see a single Ethernet adapter achieve 90MB/sec but never saw it happen again.

Denis