<![CDATA[Multi-WAN - Add NIC or use VLANs?]]>Hi all,

I have a multi-wan setup on an older Dell PowerEdge 2650 Server.  Currently, the server has 3 NICs.  1 LAN, 1 WAN to a 40M Fiber connection, and 1 WAN to a 10M DSL connection for failover.

I'm building a new Dell PowerEdge R410 server that has 2 internal Gigabit NICs.  I'm wondering if it would be better to purchase an additional PCI-E NIC for the 2nd WAN connection or if I would be just as well to create VLANs for the 2 WAN connections?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

jeff

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/topic/39607/multi-wan-add-nic-or-use-vlansRSS for NodeMon, 12 Oct 2026 05:41:01 GMTWed, 30 Nov 2011 15:40:15 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Multi-WAN - Add NIC or use VLANs? on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:17:03 GMT]]>I would go with vlans and not bother with another NIC.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/307148https://forum.netgate.com/post/307148Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:17:03 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Multi-WAN - Add NIC or use VLANs? on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:18:03 GMT]]>I think this should work and perform well.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/306713https://forum.netgate.com/post/306713Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:18:03 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Multi-WAN - Add NIC or use VLANs? on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:38:54 GMT]]>Thanks Nachtfalke,

I should have mentioned that we already have a good HP VLAN capable switch that I can use.  Regarding the bandwidth, I figured I would be OK since the sum of the 2 WANs is 50M (I wouldn't be using the DSL either except for failover events).  The built-in broadcom NICs are gigabit.  Even though I will be plugging it into a 100M port on the HP Switch, I still have headroom for bandwidth.

Thoughts?

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/306706https://forum.netgate.com/post/306706Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:38:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Multi-WAN - Add NIC or use VLANs? on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:12:36 GMT]]>Hi,

if you are using VLANs und WAN site than you need a VLAN capable switch to which you can connect your ISP's modems.

MODEM1–-untagged VID10----
                                          ---switch----tagged VID10+20 ---- pfsense------LAN
MODEM2---untagged VID20----/

If I think about the costs it would be perhaps better to use a dual port or quad port NIC for "less" WAN connections and if you are using more than 4 WAN than it would be perhaps cheaper to use a VLAN capable switch and one NIC.

But if you are using one NIC for many WANs than you should use a good intel server NIC to handle th sum of bandwidth of all you WANs.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/306700https://forum.netgate.com/post/306700Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:12:36 GMT