I want to setup a firewall handling two ISP connections and two routers. For that I am planning to use an old Pentium 3 machine. Now, should I use four network interface cards or a 4-port NIC?
For that I am planning to use an old
Pentium 3 machine.
Since you are using an older machine, I suspect I would go with whatever is inexpensive. Does your computer have a 64 bit PCI-X slot? Most of the 4 port PCI interfaces I have seen prefer one?
Since you are already choosing to use an older machine, I am not sure you will really see much difference either way.
This means if you get 4 Desktop adapters you are playing $34 per port. If you get two 2port adapters your paying $94 per port For one 4port adapter your paying $100 per port. If it is for an older P3 I don't really thing you'll see a difference between a server adapter and a good desktop adapter. Plus with if you go the inexpensive route you can afford to pick up a spare or two for growth or replacement if something fails.
I think probably the biggest issue you need to look at is simply how many expansion slots and what type are available on the motherboard.
I'd go with two 2-port nics. They're generally easier to find, and you can get two for less than the price of a single 4-port. It also offers you more hardware redundancy in the rare even that one of them fails. For bonus points, get them from different vendors and avoid potential driver bugs as well.
Of course, all of this may be unnecessary if you just use VLANs. A lot of the router setups I've done are "one-armed routers", with a single cable coming out and all networks going through that port as tagged VLANs.
Whatever you do, have at least one spare, you don't want your firewall to be down with a NIC failure and have to scramble to order a new 4-port NIC or find a few spare NICs.
Since you are using an older machine, I suspect I would go with whatever is inexpensive. Does your computer have a 64 bit PCI-X slot? Most of the 4 port PCI interfaces I have seen prefer one?
Since you are already choosing to use an older machine, I am not sure you will really see much difference either way.
For example right now:
This means if you get 4 Desktop adapters you are playing $34 per port. If you get two 2port adapters your paying $94 per port For one 4port adapter your paying $100 per port. If it is for an older P3 I don't really thing you'll see a difference between a server adapter and a good desktop adapter. Plus with if you go the inexpensive route you can afford to pick up a spare or two for growth or replacement if something fails.
I think probably the biggest issue you need to look at is simply how many expansion slots and what type are available on the motherboard.
I'd go with two 2-port nics. They're generally easier to find, and you can get two for less than the price of a single 4-port. It also offers you more hardware redundancy in the rare even that one of them fails. For bonus points, get them from different vendors and avoid potential driver bugs as well.
Of course, all of this may be unnecessary if you just use VLANs. A lot of the router setups I've done are "one-armed routers", with a single cable coming out and all networks going through that port as tagged VLANs.
Personally I would go with a 4-port NIC.
Not a huge difference at the end of the day just less hassle.
My suggestion: one gigabit ethernet card that can do vlan tagging in your preferred OS and a gigabit vlan capable switch.
I'd go with a 4-port NIC, or at least 2 2-ports.
Whatever you do, have at least one spare, you don't want your firewall to be down with a NIC failure and have to scramble to order a new 4-port NIC or find a few spare NICs.
You can also use just one NIC and a "smart" ("managed") switch that supports 802.1Q (VLAN Tagging).
How about this Quad Port GbE NIC? Portwell's NIC-51240 Base on Intel 82580 PCIe Gen2?