Connecting Two PCs directly with CrossOver Cable & Still leaving it on an existing network??

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

followthefire

New Member
Nov 2, 2020
2
0
1
Hi Guys, question for you,

This probably has come up before... I have a few PCs hardwired on my network at home, and unfortunelty it's only 1000Mb link. I'll get there some day :). Anyway, I need to redo some Raid pools, I am looking at ways to speed up the backup process from one Backup to another (two different PCs). At the moment, even 2.5x increase in speed would be great, so I am thinking I could link to the two PCs with a crossover cable and create an adhoc network link between them... buying two 2.5Gbe USB nic and a crossover adapter.

It's easy enough to hook up two PCs directly with a crossover cable an adhoc network, but how do I do this AND leave the existing 1Gbe Nic network running? I have not seen anyone spell that out.

Thanks in advance!
-Matt
 

kapone

Well-Known Member
May 23, 2015
1,095
642
113
Different subnets.

Let's say your existing network is 192.168.1.x/24. This is what your PCs use to communicate to the rest of the network.

You get two new nics for these two PCs and put static IPs on them. Let's say 172.16.1.1 and 172.16.1.2. This subnet is NOT connected to your network, only these two PCs are on it. If you access the 'other' PC by IP address and use the 17.16.1.x address, it'll automatically go over those new nics

This is actually routing 101. :)