[edge.it]

why does the new mac pro have two ports. i know im a noob, but i cant think of many scenarios to why you would want two ports. besides hiding computers on networks, but in a home network envio. i cant think of many

[peeb]

You might want to be connected to two networks, or you might want to use both of them at the same time to get mad bandwidth. You might want to be connected to a network and to a network connected printer, scanner etc. You can also do funky network things with them that I don't understand.

[OreoCookie]

You could use your Mac Pro as a router that connects two networks, for instance. There are a few uses for two NICs and for people who don't need two, where's the harm?

[Sub]

It was standard on the final release of the G5 too.

[edge.it]

i know i agree there is no harm. actually it just intrigued me alot so i was hoping people could give some uses so i can play around with em.

[Big Mac]

it's not a feature many will use, but some will.

[King Chung Huang]

It's also useful for Xsan, having a whole separate network for metadata.

[Joe West]

I run OSX server and actually use 4 ethernet ports... the two built in to my Mac Pro and two more on a pcie Greentree Communications card. One port runs my mail server, another my web server, a third ties to my work Intranet via tunneling VPN, and the fourth ties to my home intranet.

Joe

[homgran]

My office at work has two wired access points for the network. Both ethernet wall sockets are in use by the two office workstations (a Dell for my office mate and a Quad-core G5 for me).

The thing is, I like to keep all *all* of my data on my old 1GHz PowerBook - and I only use the G5 for running simulations (four executing at any given time, the rest queued). Since the IT admin insists that workstations remain connected to the network at all times, this leaves me with the little problem of accessing both the internet and the local area network from my PowerBook.

While internet sharing through wireless via the G5 is an option, it's not ideal since my PowerBook only has 802.11b and I need to shuffle around large data files on a regular basis. So instead I use the second ethernet port on the G5 - and it works a treat!

[Waragainstsleep]

If you have two ports, you can set the Pro up as a network gateway. Plug your modem into port one, then your network into port two. Allows you to use the Pro to run firewall, NAT, etc etc.

[besson3c]

It's a common feature of servers too for the purpose of pure redundancy, in case a NIC goes bad.

[CIA]

Where I work has a internal network and internet connection for the office, and a free (rarely used) wireless network for the building. Our internal networks internet connection is always clogged, but I need access to the servers on that network.
So I hardwired into the "Wireless" network for my internet (I have access to the routers) and also hardwired into our internal network for server access. Boom, fast internet and still have access to work stuff.

[rbennett5]

Originally Posted by Joe West 

I run OSX server and actually use 4 ethernet ports... the two built in to my Mac Pro and two more on a pcie Greentree Communications card. One port runs my mail server, another my web server, a third ties to my work Intranet via tunneling VPN, and the fourth ties to my home intranet.

Joe

Where can I get one of those pcie Greentree Communications cards? The mac pro nic's are incompatible with my network.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by rbennett5 

The mac pro nic's are incompatible with my network.

How? Why? What?!?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by rbennett5 

Where can I get one of those pcie Greentree Communications cards? The mac pro nic's are incompatible with my network.

No, that's incorrect. They are standard Gigabit ethernet cards. If you can't connect to your network, something is wrong with the network.

[rbennett5]

Ok. Full and complete story:

I'm the IT guy for a department of about 500 in a company over 50,000. Network infrastructure is controlled by the network department of which I'm not part of. I have the following machines allocated to me:

Mac Pro - Purchased 11/06 as my main desktop and primary workhorse (quad core)
MacBook Pro - 15" Purchased 5/07 as my main laptop
Mac Mini - 166ghz Purchased 5/07 as a test machine
Dell Inspiron 6400 - Purchased this year as a test machine for OS's (currently running XP)
Dell PowerEdge SC1420 - Purchase data unknown, primary test server
IBM Thinkpad R51 - Purchase date unknown, loaner laptop

I have two data ports at my desk both attached to the same network switch of which all I know is it's a 10/100 cisco. Every single one of the machines above will connect to this switch on either wall port at 100 full duplex except my mac pro. It only connects at half duplex using either nic. If I force it to 10 or 100, full or full with flow control, I do not get an IP address from the dhcp server. Obviously I thought there was something wrong with the mac pro so the first thing I did was put in a fresh drive and reinstall OSX. That didn't make any difference, so I called Apple. After ninety minutes on the phone with them and no luck, they had me plug my mac pro directly into my macbook pro using a straight through cable (which I didn't even know was possible, I would have thought I'd need a crossover cable) and it connects and communicates at 100 full and 1000 full (obviously gigabit doesn't do half). Thus they concluded that the problem is the switch and not my mac pro. Since I can connect full with five other machines using the same cable, networking insists it's a problem with the mac. There's only one switch in this department to connect to but I am considering taking it to another building to see what happens, I just haven't had time.

So here I am, needing to transfer large video files back and forth between the live server and my mac pro but I'm forced to use a firewire drive to do it.

Other than putting a new NIC in my mac pro, I'm out of ideas and open to trying anything.

[peeb]

Try another switch?