Why two ethernet ports on the S1?

[jimazores]

Sorry for my lack of knowledge here but how do I benefit from the two ethernet connections on the S1? Do I connect two seperate cables to my router?
After I have one cable connected to the router what do I do with the other?? Thanks for any answers.

[Gabe]

Dual ethernet ports can help provide a redundancy for those who use two ISPs, or those who run a server off of the second port, etc. For those who can get blazing fast internet speed, as in that which exceeds the speed of the actual port, it can also help to make things faster with having two connections, but this last thing wouldn't apply to most people, as most people can't get anywhere near the speeds where they could take advantage of this.

For example, if the ports are 1Gbps each, but your internet service provides speeds of 1.2Gbps, you can connect your internet service to both ports to take advantage of that speed that's higher than a single port would allow. Again though, most people don't have internet this fast, or at least not yet.

The second port is just optional. Using it isn't required. You can use either one and just ignore the other if you don't need it for anything.

[cackletinkle]

in addition what @gabe mentioned, some may want to use the mini pc for pi-hole or pfsense where it helps to have multiple ports to direct the network traffic..

[hsehestedt]

Another potential use is for people running VMs. As an example, I run a Hyper-V VM but I like to devote a separate network interface to the VM and not share the network interface that my main Windows installation uses.

[jimazores]

Thanks to all for your replies. For me, since I do not do any of the things mentioned , I really only need the one port. I just did not want to leave capability unused by lack of understanding. Gabe's answer explained it well.

[jimazores]

Does the output of the second port equal the input to the first_ie if I ran a cable from the second port to my tv input would the tv see the same thing as if I had run the cable to the tv directly from the router? I never got a response to this question so let me explain a bit better.
I am going to use the S1 as a media computer to replace a ten year old, slow machine. At present my router sits about 2 meters from the computer and smart tv. I therefore have two ethernet cables from the router, one going to the present computer and one going to the samart tv ethernet input.

As this new computer will sit right next to the tv and it has two ethernet ports, can I run one cable from the router to the S1 and then a short cable from the S1 to the tv thernet input?? ie will the smart tv get the same input if the cable copmes from the S1 as it would if the cable came from the router?? If so, it would help clean up my cable runs.

[removablequotes]

Does the output of the second port equal the input to the first_ie if I ran a cable from the second port to my tv input would the tv see the same thing as if I had run the cable to the tv directly from the router? I never got a response to this question so let me explain a bit better.
I am going to use the S1 as a media computer to replace a ten year old, slow machine. At present my router sits about 2 meters from the computer and smart tv. I therefore have two ethernet cables from the router, one going to the present computer and one going to the samart tv ethernet input.

As this new computer will sit right next to the tv and it has two ethernet ports, can I run one cable from the router to the S1 and then a short cable from the S1 to the tv thernet input?? ie will the smart tv get the same input if the cable copmes from the S1 as it would if the cable came from the router?? If so, it would help clean up my cable runs.

What you are describing is called a bridge. You could setup a bridge for the two ethernet ports together so that it basically acts as a switch. I've only done that in Linux, but I believe Windows has the capability to bridge as well. Downside is that the computer has to be running or else your tv would lose connection.

[pausenklaus]

Does the output of the second port equal the input to the first_ie if I ran a cable from the second port to my tv input would the tv see the same thing as if I had run the cable to the tv directly from the router? I never got a response to this question so let me explain a bit better.
I am going to use the S1 as a media computer to replace a ten year old, slow machine. At present my router sits about 2 meters from the computer and smart tv. I therefore have two ethernet cables from the router, one going to the present computer and one going to the samart tv ethernet input.

As this new computer will sit right next to the tv and it has two ethernet ports, can I run one cable from the router to the S1 and then a short cable from the S1 to the tv thernet input?? ie will the smart tv get the same input if the cable copmes from the S1 as it would if the cable came from the router?? If so, it would help clean up my cable runs.

What you are describing is called a bridge. You could setup a bridge for the two ethernet ports together so that it basically acts as a switch. I've only done that in Linux, but I believe Windows has the capability to bridge as well. Downside is that the computer has to be running or else your tv would lose connection.

Setting up a bridge on Windows can be easily done in the Interface settings.

[jimazores]

Thanks for the info. The killer for me is that I do not want to have to have the computer on to use the tv so I am stuck with two ethernet cables from the router. Jim