shotgun connections ?

Hi,

Just a very theoretical question here, about having parallel connections
from one computer to a router.

I have a ´D-Link DGL-4300 router with gigabit switch and WLAN. On one
computer I have a gigabit ethernet adapter on the motherboard, and a WLAN
adapter. Both get an IP from the same D-link device, and with both I can
access the internet and browse the computers on my home network.

I have been using the wired connection for big file transfers (HDD backups,
etc...) and usually only the WLAN connection is up so no messy cables are
around. I always disable the unused connection. When both are enabled
though, the traffic seems to go through the interface that was already up
when I activate the other, never through the one that has been activated
last, judging from the file transfer speed.

I really don't need more speed, on the gigabit adapters my files transfers
are limited byt my slow hard drive sustained read/write speeds (about
30MB/sec) . But is there a way to have both connections work in parallel ?
Some specific program ? What instance decides which ethernet interface will
carry the traffic ?

What about 2 computers with 2 NICS each, connected through 2 crossover
cables. Can the connections be "shotgunned" ?

All explanations and URLs welcome, thank you.

Lorenzo

Lorenzo Sandini wrote:

> I really don't need more speed, on the gigabit adapters my files transfers
> are limited byt my slow hard drive sustained read/write speeds (about
> 30MB/sec) . But is there a way to have both connections work in parallel ?

If your HD is running flat out, what willyou achieve using both
connections ?

You might be able to route traffic (get into MS-DOS and use 'route
print' and investigate the route command yourself) but I guess the only
way this would assist would be if you had two gateways on your LAN. I've
used this to have some traffic (DNS lookups, for example) go via a fixed
IP on one ISP, and browsing [where I don't want to use a fixed IP] going
through a different ISP with dynamic IP... works fine with two gateways,
and only one ethernet connection, but I can see little point in using a
wireless link when your higher speed connection is also connected,
unless it is mostly to experiment (in which case the handling by
Windows will cause more problems than give solutions, IMO!)

> What instance decides which ethernet interface will carry the traffic ?

Windows will tend to use one that it knows about. I thought it used
the last one where it had done a PPP connection, but there is none
in your case, if your transfers were to local PCs. Ask Microsoft