File Access Question

Hi guys i have a query and i hope one of you can help. Ok here is the scenario at work we have a File Server which also does other things. The box has 3 NIC's though only one is being used. The NIC is only 100Mb and is getting a hammering from the user's. The Server has a shared drive where user's can store documents approx 1000. It also holds Citrix tsprofiles and holds payroll data. The question is could i assign each NIC an IP and DNS entry and specify which NIC handles what ie could NIC1 take care of tsprofiles NIC 2 takes care of access to the shared drive and NIC3 controls payroll basically tripling the machines bandwidth.If not we'll upgrade to a gig connection.

Thanks in advance

Pretty sure you cannot do that.

Did'nt think so myself just wanted to double check. Cheers.

Hi Smurf from reading your previous posts your nearly always on the button however my director is being a tight ass with this is there any logical reason why this wont work to be honest i cant see why it wont work but if something seems to good to be true it usually isnt so my gut instict is telling me it wont but i have to explain why please help

I'm assuming your using Windows, If I'm not mistaken, what your talking about is termed "Load Balancing". I recall that only Windows 2000 Advanced Server is capable of Load Balancing. I'm not sure about Windows 2003 server.

Leaving that away, You can off course give an IP and a DNS entry to each NIC, , but it's difficult to give each NIC a process.

Incoming traffic will come from the right NIC. The real problem is in your server reply (Outgoing traffic). Windows by default directs all traffic (that are not part of the NICs own subnet) to a single NIC that it chooses. Sure, you can modify the routing table by the "route" command or by using "Routing and Remote access" snap in, but this will probably not do what you wanted. It will only distribute traffic on your NICs according to destination IP of the packet, not according to the process it came from.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I suppose i could just bind the three cards together it wont specify which application goes through what but it should speed up performance.