Is it possible to use 3Com for NIC Teaming

[sirch]

Hi guys,
I have two old NT 4 servers that I need to setup for Teaming NIC
Server A has NC3163 NIC
Server B has 3Com 3c908C

My questions are :
For Server A is it really important that the second NIC should be of the same model?

For Server B is it possible to use 3Com for NIC teaming or the two NIC's should be both Compaq of the same model or adding another 3Com NIC is possible.

Would appreciate your help..

[Prashant (I am Back)]

Hi,

different model will also do but the utility will check for the compatible card which are from HP. So i think it may not recognize your card in teaming utility bec it has happened with me.

Regards,
Prashant S.

[Mahesh Kumar Malik]

Hi

1. For server A second NIC need not be same model but should be supported on server and have same functionality options ( e.g. both should be Gigabit type)

2. For server B If one 3Com NIC is already working , you may go for another similar card.

Regards
Mahesh

[Connery]

Sirch,
Any HP NC series NIC can be teamed together with another NC series NIC. You can team Fast Ethernet Cards (NC3xxx) with Gigabit Ethernet Cards (NC7xxx) with any team type. However, you can only team NC3xxx with NC6xxx for fault tolerance, not load balancing.

As long as you are using HP's NIC Teaming, an NC series NIC is required.

In general, you want to use NICs in a team that are similar in feature sets only if you care about using the features. For instance, if you are using HP's Teaming and one NIC supports Large Send Offload and another NIC doesn't, the Teaming driver will allow you to team them but will lower the feature set supported on the team to the lowest common demoninator (disables Large Send Offload on all NICs in the team).

Broadcom and Intel Teaming drivers may allow multivendor teaming but with reduced feature sets.