I have 2 Windows 10 PCs (Home edition), and I'm trying to set up a home NAS server, as shown below. I use my 2 PCs for gaming and streaming (respectively).
I have a Gigabit router, 2 USB to Gigabit Ethernet Adapters, and an Un-managed Gigabit Network switch, which connects the 2 PCs, in 2 distinct paths. So, both PCs have 2 Ethernet adapters each, and I have set static IPs for all 4 adapters. The static IPs for the Internet-facing Router are of the form 192.168.0.xxx and the IPs for the LAN-facing Switch are of the form 192.168.2.xxx (No specific reason to do this, I just wanted to easily be able to identify which network I'm dealing with just by looking at the IPs).
My goal is to make sure that my gaming and streaming are not affected by the local NAS file transfers, and also to make sure that the NAS file transfers use the full Gigabit bandwidth (I know it won't hit the theoretical maximum, but that's fine). I want to make sure that all bytes related to gaming/streaming only use the Router (192.168.0.xxx adapters) and all bytes related to NAS file transfers only use the Switch (192.168.2.xxx adapters).
I was able to establish connectivity, but I do have a few questions about this setup, could someone please help me with these?
Is this the correct way to set up the PCs, for what I want to do? Most websites talk about connecting multiple PCs to the switch, and then connect the switch to the router. But my goal was NOT to share the internet connection, I just wanted a dedicated network for NAS transfers, and a dedicated network for Internet access.
I had to set both Private and Public profile in the File and Printer Sharing Inbound Rule in Windows Firewall, without it, I wasn't able to connect to the 2nd PC using the 192.168.2.xxx IP. Is it safe to use Public profile? I have read that it should ideally only be Private profile?
I initially thought that I would get close to 1 Gbps bandwidth each on both networks, but when I ran 2 simultaneous iperf tests, I only got close to 1 Gbps in total. Based on the blinking LEDs, I'm confident that only the Router was used when I used 192.168.0.xxx in the iperf command, and that only the Switch was used when I used 192.168.2.xxx in the iperf command. Since they are technically 2 separate Gigabit networks, shouldn't I have got close to 1 Gbps speed on both networks, independently? Right now, speed is effectively being halved on both networks. There is no issue with either network, I'm able to hit Gigabit speeds when I run single iperf tests on either network, so the halving of speed is happening only when I run both iperf tests.
Internet
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|
Gigabit Router
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(192.168.0.xxx) | (192.168.0.xxx)
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Windows PC 1 Windows PC 2
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| (192.168.2.xxx) | (192.168.2.xxx)
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USB to Gigabit USB to Gigabit
Ethernet Ethernet
Adapter Adapter
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|____________________________________|
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Un-managed
Gigabit
Network
Switch