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Combining throttled LAN connections for double speed?
meatflower
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Dormrooms on campus here have two ethernet ports in each room, each seems to be limited to 300-400 KB/sec download speed outside the LAN. I know our campus internet is faster since one can get 2000+KB/sec on the wireless network, which unfortunatley does not extend to the dorms.
Is there anyway to combine the two connections into one in Windows with a second network card?
Is there anyway to combine the two connections into one in Windows with a second network card?
meatflower on
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Windows Server, yes. Home/Pro/Vista, no.
If you really, really want the better speed, pick up a dual-WAN router with load balancing. Linksys RV042 is pretty good for not too much money.
Personally though, I'd get a wireless card and Pringles-Cantenna my way into WLAN range. $10 or so plus the card cost.
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In practice this ends up being two PCs connected to a load balancing router and when one pc signs on, and starts going it gets assigned to one network address. Then another PC is turned on and gets assigned to another.
Unless my concept of the technology behind it is flawed, this is how it's worked in every implementation I've been forced to put together. And then having to deal with 4 angry customers because their 8 dialup lines didn't give them highspeed internet isn't a great and wonderful thing.
The load-balancing routers are able to split per-session now, not per-IP; but bowen's still right in that it will only really shine if you're doing >1 download at once or if you're using a download manager that allows multiple connections. It'll start the download (one TCP session) and fill up WAN1, the next one will start, the router will go "Hey, WAN1 is at capacity, shift to WAN2" and fire the link out from there.
Of course it does require that the server allow the download splitting/resuming, and you'll probably never see the 2x speed.
So really, break out the Pringles can and point it at the WLAN. I bet you can hit it from the dorms. :P
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I did some digging and read about a program called NIC Express, made by FalconStor, but it seems to have been discontinued since there's no mention of it on the company website. It also used to cost $395
However, since it's a throttled LAN, joining two might make this work since to the internet host you're not looking at any difference in destination host. Bet I bet in practicality you'll probably see between 0-5% speed upgrade.
In "think outside the box" mode here, don't mind my rambling.
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Bah. I spent last summer at home working over the internet on a 150KB/sec wifi signal that dropped every 30 minutes. I spend each semester at school with a 2000+KB/sec traffic prioritized network link, complete with max throughput of 5 gigs/month. You have it good.
This being said, it doesn't seem like it would be impossibly hard to knock some sort of proxy together in Java that made full use of both network interfaces.
Not sure a windows version was ever available, and I think it's been replaced by kernel support for bonding with linux. But it may be something worth looking in to.. Cisco switches are supposed to support it automatically.
Don't you think they would notice you raking up the bandwidth on the ethernet lines? I mean, they know what dorm you live in and they know what drops are plugged into which dorms.