Home lab networking ideas?

[Faize]

Currently, my ESXi 5.5 home lab server (which has 2 physical NICs) is connected to a cheap unmanaged switch. The switch in turn has a single 1 Gbps upstream connection to my router. Everything else on my network is connected directly to the router.

So far, I've been using ESXi's default configuration - please see the attached screenshot for details. I'm decently satisfied with this, but in the spirit of learning and continuous improvement, I'm wondering if there's something that I could be doing better here - perhaps some way to make use of my second NIC, for instance?

[HawkieMan · Accepted solution]

In an unmanaged switch you are not able to take advantage of the most usable functions like using VLANs, but there is nothing wrong With adding the NIC on a New switchport for use by specific VMs. I would however not use it for NIC Teaming on existing uplink port.

One way to add some complexity in the lab design is to dedicate one NIC for vmotion and the other for VM traffic. There is nothing blocking you from using IP separation and using other IP ranges across the same switched net, but it would generate unnescessary noise.