[squid-users] performance question, 1 or 2 NIC's?

This is a general Squid question. If you have experience with medium
sized networks (300+ users) and Squid, this question is for you.

I'm setting up a transparent Squid box for 300 users. All requests
from the router are sent to the Squid box. Squid box has one NIC,
eth0. This box receives requests (from clients) and catches content
from the web using this one NIC on its one WAN port, eth0.

Question: would it improve performance of the Squid box if I was
receiving requests (from the clients) on eth0 and caching content on
eth1? In other words, is there a benefit of using two NIC's vs. one?
This is a public IP/WAN Squid box. Both eth0 and eth1 would have a WAN
(public IP) address.

Current (working setup)
Clients -> Router -> (eth0/WAN1) Squid -> (eth0/WAN1) www

Would this be (performance wise) better?
Clients -> Router -> (eth0/WAN1) Squid (eth1/WAN2) -> www

I'm on a 12Mb line.
Received on Sat Aug 28 2010 - 15:29:13 MDT