How To Wire This Network?

[slaughteredlamb]

Our network consists of various PC's all connected to the same server via two switches that are linked (making one giant switch) and as well as the server and PC's all being plugged into that switch we also have another PC that acts as an SQL server for a particular application we run, an exchange server for e-mail as well as printers and a modem.

All of this remarkably then connects to a single port Gigabit NIC card in the server!

This all worked fine until we built another studio which basically is now overloading the poor NIC card.

We have now installed a 4 port NIC and will be setting it up for Teaming/Load Balancing however we have a feeling that this might not completely solve the problem and that what we may need to do is to separate the switches and have possibly 4 separate switches each going to an individual port on the NIC. None of the computers really need to 'see' each other they just need to be able to access the files on the server.

However every computer regardless of what switch/NIC port it's connected to needs to be able to access the Exchange Server, SQL server and Internet so how can you wire this up without then effectively linking the switches and therefore not keeping things separate?

[Rosco]

network traffic should be able to traverse the switches to any other machine, so all PCs will be able to find each other anyway, including the exchange/sql server

Switches are just decision making hubs, they don't route IP packets like routers... so as long as all the PCs are on the same network/subnet (which it sounds like yours are) then it doesn't matter how you wire it up, they can all talk to each other regardless of how you optimise the traffic going in and out of the main server's NIC(s)

[slaughteredlamb]

Ahh right, cheers Rosco much appreciated!