PC to PC CAT6 Connection Help


slipstream

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Hi All,

My goal is to setup a peer to peer CAT6 cable connection between two PCs using only the LAN ethernet ports already included in each of the motherboards. PC#1 is my UnRaid PC and PC#2 is my Windows RAID5 PC. I need to migrate 20TB of data from the Windows RAID5 PC over to my UnRaid PC. 

 

Right now in my Windows RAID5 PC I am unable to find an IP for my UnRAID PC eventhough the two PCs are connected together with a CAT6 cable. In short, if I go to the Windows Network Sharing Center I cannot find any UnRaid PC IP address.

 

My hope is somebody in the community could offer some advice on what is the correct way to link two PCs together. Do I need to use a router between the two PCs? Or is a single CAT6 cable connection between both PCs adequate?  Any help will be welcome.  Thank you.

 

 

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You should be able to use a direct cable...but since there is no Router (that normally would provide IP-Adresses via DHCP) inside that LAN Segment, you need to configure both network cards manually, with proper IP Address, Netmask and Gateway.

For the same reason, on a straight cable, there is no DNS/WINs resolution and you won*t be able to find the unRaid server on your Explorer under network devices.

You will need to map the unRaid server manually as a computer, using the assigned remote IP.

When you set this up, test if the network works by using a "ping <remote-ip>" in a command shell on either side, first.

 

The question is, what you want to gain by using a direct cable. Using CAT6 will not necessarily result in a connection (i.e. 2.5G, 5G, 10G) with higher bandwidth unless the NIC hardware on both sides does support that.

So using a 1GBE Switch in between will not introduce more LAG/reduced bandwidth and adding the router into that segment is more easy, providing an easier network setup, including automatic IP assignment.

Edited by Ford Prefect
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Ford Prefect,

Thank you for such an excellent explanation. I seriously thought it was going to be a "plug and play" endeavour to mate both of my PCs with a CAT6 cable and enable them to interchange data. But thanks to your post I now see there is a lot more to it.  Fortunately, I stumbled across the excellent YouTube video in the link below:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMMopEiwiEo

 

According to what is shown in the video what I want to do can be done using two Mellonx cards joined together with a special cable.  I plan to follow the video and post the results I get.  Again, thanks for your help.

 

 

 

 

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