Best Windows 11 home settings for using 1st gigabit lan for internet and using 2nd gigabit lan for file sharing and tranferring files only (details )

[diamondx12]

i want to know how to create a home network meaning what settings do i need to use on the computers. Here is my situation. I have 3 computers, each computer have 2 gigabit lan ports, i have a 1 gigabit network internet connection. I have 1 router for the internet use only and i have another router for local home networking only (meaning i have windows 11 on all 3 computers, and 1 computer i have sharing my local hard drive with the other 2 computers.) So i was wondering what settings for all 3 computer should i set for to work in the following manner. I want each computer to use the 1 gigabit lan port for internet only while the 2nd gigabit lan port they use for local networking sharing only. So how i tell each computer to use the 1st gigabit port for internet only and then use 2nd gigabit port for home networking only. please keep in mind that i have 3 computers running windows 11 home and each computer has a total of 2 gigabit lan ports on them. Thanks in advance. also the 2nd router that will be doing the home networking will not be connecting to internet is it just for home networking sharing information between all 3 computers.

[ChrisLoudon]

14 minutes ago, diamondx12 said:

i want to know how to create a home network meaning what settings do i need to use on the computers. Here is my situation. I have 3 computers, each computer have 2 gigabit lan ports, i have a 1 gigabit network internet connection. I have 1 router for the internet use only and i have another router for local home networking only (meaning i have windows 11 on all 3 computers, and 1 computer i have sharing my local hard drive with the other 2 computers.) So i was wondering what settings for all 3 computer should i set for to work in the following manner. I want each computer to use the 1 gigabit lan port for internet only while the 2nd gigabit lan port they use for local networking sharing only. So how i tell each computer to use the 1st gigabit port for internet only and then use 2nd gigabit port for home networking only. please keep in mind that i have 3 computers running windows 11 home and each computer has a total of 2 gigabit lan ports on them. Thanks in advance. also the 2nd router that will be doing the home networking will not be connecting to internet is it just for home networking sharing information between all 3 computers.

Hi buddy,

 

Unless you need some additional security, you don't need to use the 2nd lan port on any PC.

 

I have a 1GB fibre internet connection with the following connected:

 

7 x PCs (all cat6)

1 x Home Server (cat6)

2 x laptops (wireless)

2 x Phones (wireless)

3 x Smart TVs (cat6)

2 x PS4s (cat6)

and a load of home AV stuff that's cat6 as well

 

All of the above is fed as follows:

 

Fibre Router feeds directly into a 12 port switch that feeds all devices in that room. Longer run Cat6 cables then go from same switch to other rooms in the house and into smaller 8 port switches that then feed each rooms devices.

 

I also have a home server that deals with my Plex, file serving and a few network wide services and I have no issues with bandwidth or reliability.

 

In summary, I don't think you  need to over complicate your home network with multiple NICs / VLans unless you have specific security concerns as this will only require you to setup potentially unnecessary firewall rules / routes.

[Kisai]

25 minutes ago, diamondx12 said:

i want to know how to create a home network meaning what settings do i need to use on the computers. Here is my situation. I have 3 computers, each computer have 2 gigabit lan ports, i have a 1 gigabit network internet connection. I have 1 router for the internet use only and i have another router for local home networking only (meaning i have windows 11 on all 3 computers, and 1 computer i have sharing my local hard drive with the other 2 computers.) So i was wondering what settings for all 3 computer should i set for to work in the following manner. I want each computer to use the 1 gigabit lan port for internet only while the 2nd gigabit lan port they use for local networking sharing only. So how i tell each computer to use the 1st gigabit port for internet only and then use 2nd gigabit port for home networking only. please keep in mind that i have 3 computers running windows 11 home and each computer has a total of 2 gigabit lan ports on them. Thanks in advance. also the 2nd router that will be doing the home networking will not be connecting to internet is it just for home networking sharing information between all 3 computers.

 

I think you're over complicating it. You have several solutions

PC-Switch/Router-Internet

PC-|

PC-|

 

and

PC-Switch

PC-|

PC-|

 

But also

PC(1a)-|

PC(2a)-|

PC(1b)-|-Switch-Internet

PC(2b)-|

PC(1c)-|

PC(2c)-|

 

Depending on how you setup things, you can either have the network "teamed" so you get 2Gbits per PC, or you can have them on two separate switches with two different IP address sets (192.168.0.1/255 and 192.168.1.1/255) or one set of IP ranges.

 

Basically what you're asking is kind of silly, but not too far out there. If this was a data center, it would make sense, because you would connect your PC's to the "gateway" switch, and then connect your other ethernet port to the un-routed switch, and run your IPMI sessions over that one. Whichever machine is operational acts as the access gateway.

 

But for a home desktop, you do realize you can assign multiple IP addresses to the SAME ethernet device already right? So you could take that third option above, and still assign 192.168.0.1/255 and 192.168.1.1/255 and just only have one gateway assigned and still benefit from having two switches.

 

The problem, of course, is that teaming tends to not work like people think it works. What it does is enable multiple data streams for failover rather than to increase net bandwidth. Usually it only works in favor for servers doing load balancing and not very much for client devices. 

 

Anyway, what's most likely going to happen is that Windows won't team the adapters if they're on switches that can't see each other, thus it will treat each switch set as though they are different computers. This might work, but if you're trying to secure your network, it just won't because you can't typically tell Windows to share only on ethernet adapter A and not B. The computer only has one name.

 

Hence the last configuration is no less secure.

 

There is a "gotcha" here though, you can setup static IP addresses on that non-routed-to-the-internet switch connected ports (so you don't need a second router doing nothing), but Windows won't be forced to use it unless you set the internet-facing addresses to "public" and the ones you want the shares to work on to "private"

 

Realistically, you shouldn't even be concerned about this if you have a proper router and aren't connecting your machines directly to the internet.

[Needfuldoer]

There's no reason to overcomplicate the setup like that unless you're running 10 gig Ethernet between your PCs and the file server. Just run everything on one subnet.

 

If you really insist, set up a completely separate network just for file sharing and use a different address space. (For example, 192.168.2.x/24 instead of 192.168.1.x/24.) Then connect to the file shares by those addresses instead of the "regular" ones.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

There's no reason to overcomplicate the setup like that unless you're running 10 gig Ethernet between your PCs and the file server. Just run everything on one subnet.

 

If you really insist, set up a completely separate network just for file sharing and use a different address space. (For example, 192.168.2.x/24 instead of 192.168.1.x/24.) Then connect to the file shares by those addresses instead of the "regular" ones.

Doesn't SMB Multichannel mean you can just plug both into the LAN and call it a day now?

 

Of course that wont stop file transfers slowing down the Internet on that PC, but those file transfers will take half as long.

[mariushm]

If you want really good separation, 

 

You could give the  ports for Internet IPs from a private class like 192.168.0. xxx  and for the internal network, use another private IP range like 10.x.x.x - 10.255.255.255 or 176.16.x.x - 176.31.255.255  (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network#Private_IPv4_addresses ) 

 

You could use two separate network switches or you could use a network switch with management and configure separate VLANs on the switch. 

 

Anyway, generally you don't need to have separate network cards, or at the very least it's not worth doing it with gigabit cards... usually you have all the computers and devices connected to a router or a modem supplied by the ISP which acts like a router, and these devices are smart enough to route the local network traffic between the ports on the device, they don't go to the internet. 

 

If you want separate local network, it would make more sense to do it with 10gbps (or higher) cards, you can get these days 2 x 40 gbps cards for $30 a piece  which also work with 10gbps transceivers or dac cables, for example https://unixsurplus.com/mellanox-connectx-3-pro-en-dual-port-40gbe/

Dual RJ45 10g cards are on same site at around 27$ each ... 

And you can get more modern SFP28 2 x 25gbps cards for $44 (there was a seller on eBay selling HP branded models of this for $30 each) : https://unixsurplus.com/hp-mellanox-mcx4121a-acat-dual-port-25gbps-sfp28-pci-express-3.0-x8-high-profile/

 

 

[diamondx12]

Thank you for the wonderful advice, i still a newbie at networking.  but here is my setup i have that works but i what to make sure it this setup okay or do i need to do it a different way.

 

1 gigabit cable modem:-------1st gigabit router------1st computer A. 1st gigabit lan internet.   B. 2nd gigabit lan (file sharing only): - - - - I        

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I 

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I 

                                                                                   I-- 2nd computer A. 1st gigabit lan internet.  B. 2nd gigabit lan (file sharing only):-------I 

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I  

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I

                                                                                   I--3rd computer A. 1st gigabit lan internet.  B. 2nd gigabit lan (file sharing only):--------I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I   

2 non internet 2nd gigabit router (file sharing only)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The setup i am using works all 3 computers with windows 11 home and each computer with 2 gigabit lan ports, but i have my doubts why is that i notice that both routers using the same ip address so my question do i need to change the 2nd routers ip address.  (default address that common routers have, when trying to access the routers settings. So basicly the way i want to the computers to communcate is all 1st gigabit lan does all internet traffics out to the world while 2nd gigabit lans does all the file sharing locally (file transfers or sharing files only) and they never communcate outside the network so secured and safe.  please give me more feedback thanks in advance again.  remember i am still a newbie at networking advice and help i will be happy to accept.

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, diamondx12 said:

i notice that both routers using the same ip address so my question do i need to change the 2nd routers ip address.

Yes. You don't want your two physically separate networks to share address space.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, diamondx12 said:

Thank you for the wonderful advice, i still a newbie at networking.  but here is my setup i have that works but i what to make sure it this setup okay or do i need to do it a different way.

 

1 gigabit cable modem:-------1st gigabit router------1st computer A. 1st gigabit lan internet.   B. 2nd gigabit lan (file sharing only): - - - - I        

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I 

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I 

                                                                                   I-- 2nd computer A. 1st gigabit lan internet.  B. 2nd gigabit lan (file sharing only):-------I 

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I  

                                                                                   I                                                                                                                                                 I

                                                                                   I--3rd computer A. 1st gigabit lan internet.  B. 2nd gigabit lan (file sharing only):--------I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I   

2 non internet 2nd gigabit router (file sharing only)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The setup i am using works all 3 computers with windows 11 home and each computer with 2 gigabit lan ports, but i have my doubts why is that i notice that both routers using the same ip address so my question do i need to change the 2nd routers ip address.  (default address that common routers have, when trying to access the routers settings. So basicly the way i want to the computers to communcate is all 1st gigabit lan does all internet traffics out to the world while 2nd gigabit lans does all the file sharing locally (file transfers or sharing files only) and they never communcate outside the network so secured and safe.  please give me more feedback thanks in advance again.  remember i am still a newbie at networking advice and help i will be happy to accept.

Just use one router. There is 0 reason to separate this into two subnets. 
 

Only use 1 router, plug everything into it, and use switches where required if you need more ports for more devices. 

[Lurick]

28 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Just use one router. There is 0 reason to separate this into two subnets. 
 

Only use 1 router, plug everything into it, and use switches where required if you need more ports for more devices. 

This.

Segmenting them off in this manner isn't going to provide any additional security here since all computers still have access to both LANs just put it on the single segment (network) and be done with it.

[LIGISTX]

5 hours ago, Lurick said:

This.

Segmenting them off in this manner isn't going to provide any additional security here since all computers still have access to both LANs just put it on the single segment (network) and be done with it.

Also to note… it won’t provide any additional speed either. 
 

There is literally no advantage, only disadvantages due to complicated routing and potential packets not knowing where to go…. Which will literally just reduce performance.