2 NICs: 1Gb & 10Gb

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nikey22

New Member
Feb 19, 2018
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scenario:
Windows 1o OS
2 computers connected peer-to-peer via 10Gbe connection
IP #1: 10.10.10.1
IP#2: 10.10.10.2
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0 for both
no default gateway entered

The 2 computers also each have 1Gbe onboard NICs connected to the router with gateway: 192.168.0.1 via a switch. Their IPv4 is assigned by the DHCP

When I transfer a file from computer #1 to computer #2, it always uses the 1Gbe LAN interface.
How do I force either computer to transfer files across the 10Gb NIC?

I've already testes the 10Gb pathway by physically removing the 1Gbe connection and it works.
The interface for the 10Gb shows as "unknown network" in both computers, but the file transfer is full speed 10Gb. My problem is when both NICs are active, the computer always prefers to use the 1Gbe connection.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:

beaker

New Member
Jan 23, 2018
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I'm a little rusty on the Windows networking stack, but try raising the metric of the 1G interfaces. It should see 10G as less costly and use it over the 1G. Long time ago when 802.11b was the wireless standard I did something similar with a laptop's wired and wireless interfaces, as I didn't want the hassle of disabling Wifi every time I docked it, but I wanted the 100mb wired performance.
 

Balteck

Member
Mar 14, 2018
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scenario:
Windows 1o OS
2 computers connected peer-to-peer via 10Gbe connection
IP #1: 10.10.10.1
IP#2: 10.10.10.2
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0 for both
no default gateway entered

The 2 computers also each have 1Gbe onboard NICs connected to the router with gateway: 192.168.0.1 via a switch. Their IPv4 is assigned by the DHCP

When I transfer a file from computer #1 to computer #2, it always uses the 1Gbe LAN interface.
How do I force either computer to transfer files across the 10Gb NIC?

I've already testes the 10Gb pathway by physically removing the 1Gbe connection and it works.
The interface for the 10Gb shows as "unknown network" in both computers, but the file transfer is full speed 10Gb. My problem is when both NICs are active, the computer always prefers to use the 1Gbe connection.

Thanks.
The solution is simpler.
You probably transfer file from PC1 to PC2 using its name in Windows explorer. Windows assigns at the name of PCs the 1gbe nic, because it has a gateway and a working DNS.
If you connect from PC1 to PC2 using \\10.10.10.2\ on file explorer, Windows open a session on 10Gbe nic and use only this one for the job.

If you prefer to use the PC name, you may edit hosts file located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and hardcode :
PC1: 10.10.10.1
PC2: 10.10.10.2
 
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Samir

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Jul 21, 2017
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The solution is simpler.
You probably transfer file from PC1 to PC2 using its name in Windows explorer. Windows assigns at the name of PCs the 1gbe nic, because it has a gateway and a working DNS.
If you connect from PC1 to PC2 using \\10.10.10.2\ on file explorer, Windows open a session on 10Gbe nic and use only this one for the job.

If you prefer to use the PC name, you may edit hosts file located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and hardcode :
PC1: 10.10.10.1
PC2: 10.10.10.2
Even with this method you can still run into a scenario where the 1gb card is being used because while you can specify the NIC of the destination, you can't specify the source NIC, which can end up being 1gb vs 10gb.
 

Balteck

Member
Mar 14, 2018
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I do not agree with you.
Every IP connection is consistent with its subnet.
So if PC1 that have IP 10.10.10.1 - 255.255.255.0 and IP 192.168.0.10 - 255.255.255.0 - default gw 192.168.0.1, in its route table you find:

IP 10.10.10.1 to 10.10.10.254 use NIC 10gbe
IP 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.254 use NIC 1gbe
every other ip, the request is passed on default gateway that forward it in Internet via NIC 1gbe

For having your scenario is to have different IP, but same C-Class on both NIC. For example IP 10.10.10.1 for 10gbe and IP 10.10.10.100 for 1gbe. Or using a more wide subnet like 255.255.0.0 and having IP 192.168.1.x for 10gbe and IP 192.168.0.x for 1gbe.

But this is not the case...
 
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Samir

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I do not agree with you.
Every IP connection is consistent with its subnet.
So if PC1 that have IP 10.10.10.1 - 255.255.255.0 and IP 192.168.0.10 - 255.255.255.0 - default gw 192.168.0.1, in its route table you find:

IP 10.10.10.1 to 10.10.10.254 use NIC 10gbe
IP 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.254 use NIC 1gbe
every other ip, the request is passed on default gateway that forward it in Internet via NIC 1gbe

For having your scenario is to have different IP, but same C-Class on both NIC. For example IP 10.10.10.1 for 10gbe and IP 10.10.10.100 for 1gbe. Or using a more wide subnet like 255.255.0.0 and having IP 192.168.1.x for 10gbe and IP 192.168.0.x for 1gbe.

But this is not the case...
Very insightful. I've been looking for a solution to this for our 100Mbit vs 1Gb problems for years and this makes total sense. Basically you have 2 different networks as far as the NICs are concerned. :)
 

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
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@Balteck,
Thank you for your insights!
I have infiniband connections on 3 ESXI servers (2 on esxi 6, 1 on esxi 6.5) connected to an infiniband switch(with its own subnet manager)and on a different vswitch1 (for vmotion). Wondering how to get that working with the ip address part because it does not seem to take ip address from the DHCP server like the vswitch0. The infiniband also does not have any direct connection to my router(pfsense). So I gave each of the vswitch1 its own static ip address, but I do not know if they actually using the infiniband or have any traffic going through.
 

Balteck

Member
Mar 14, 2018
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@Balteck,
Thank you for your insights!
I have infiniband connections on 3 ESXI servers (2 on esxi 6, 1 on esxi 6.5) connected to an infiniband switch(with its own subnet manager)and on a different vswitch1 (for vmotion). Wondering how to get that working with the ip address part because it does not seem to take ip address from the DHCP server like the vswitch0. The infiniband also does not have any direct connection to my router(pfsense). So I gave each of the vswitch1 its own static ip address, but I do not know if they actually using the infiniband or have any traffic going through.
Good to hear! Maybe can you help me on my thread about choose the best sfp+ switch?

Inviato dal mio HTC One M9 utilizzando Tapatalk
 

nikey22

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Feb 19, 2018
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Thank you guys
Both ways worked, I tried both methods
@beaker - I adjusted the metric to '5' for the 10Gbe connection and '400' for the 1Gbe NIC. It favored the 10Gbe for file transfers.
@Balteck - I adjusted the host file to link the 10Gbe NIC to the specific computer name. It favored the 10Gbe for file transfers.
 

cesmith9999

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Mar 26, 2013
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Where I work, we do not allow different speed NICs to be enabled on our servers. it causes the faster NIC to really only transfer at the same speed as the slower NIC.


Chris
 

Samir

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Where I work, we do not allow different speed NICs to be enabled on our servers. it causes the faster NIC to really only transfer at the same speed as the slower NIC.


Chris
Interesting. What OS are you seeing this on?
 

cesmith9999

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2013
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Windows Server. We could change the metric. But it is simpler to just not use the slower ports.

Chris
 

fractal

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Jun 7, 2016
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The solution is simpler.
You probably transfer file from PC1 to PC2 using its name in Windows explorer. Windows assigns at the name of PCs the 1gbe nic, because it has a gateway and a working DNS.
If you connect from PC1 to PC2 using \\10.10.10.2\ on file explorer, Windows open a session on 10Gbe nic and use only this one for the job.

If you prefer to use the PC name, you may edit hosts file located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and hardcode :
PC1: 10.10.10.1
PC2: 10.10.10.2
This works on windows and linux and it a safe and portable way to solve the problem. Many people mistakenly believe that an IP address refers to a host. It does not. It refers to an interface. Creating a unique name for the interface generally solves the problem.

I have a machine that I call "file server" with two network interfaces, "file server 1g" and "file server 10g". Both refer to the same machine, but I can only address "file server 10g" if I have a PtP connection.