In my experience there is every reason to do this, and only one reason not to.
First the reason not to: if you wish to access the ANAN from more than one PC it can be convenient to have it on the main network.
That said, in my experience provisioning a dedicated Ethernet port for a direct connection to the ANAN has proven to improve performance and stability to a high degree. This is especially important if you use VAC audio.
For a long time I resisted provisioning a dedicated port. My ANAN is in the basement radio rack, my PC is in a second floor studio/office. It was enough work just to run a single Ethernet cable from both locations to my main switch. But, finally, I did run another Ethernet cable, and I have to say the difference in performance was significant:
- Seq errors completely went away
- Other processes no longer caused audio artifacts on VAC audio (in particular browsers loading web pages)
- Overall operation just seemed more "solid" (obviously not a measurable characteristic)
One of the great advantages of having a dedicated Ethernet interface is that you can disable all of the protocols you don't need on that specific port. I've got just two enabled:
- Capture.JPG (65.31 KiB) Viewed 16615 times
Another great advantage is that you can tailor the interface advanced settings for maximum performance:
- Capture.JPG (78.52 KiB) Viewed 16615 times
With the stuff you don't need disabled, advanced settings tailored (usually just a couple of small changes), and all the "normal" traffic being handled by the other Ethernet interface, everything seems to just work better.
A faster than GigE card is not necessary. However, if you plan on a fancy 2.5 or 5Gbe uplink to a NAS or something, by all means get one as long as it will auto-negotiate to 1Gbe for the ANAN on the ANAN port.
A few more tips if you do this:
1. Definitely set up static IP addresses on the second Ethernet interface and the ANAN. This makes the connection to the ANAN instant, there is no waiting for an APIPA address to sort itself out. This must be on a different subnet than the main interface. E.g. if the main interface is using 192.168.1.x the ANAN interface and the ANAN must use 192.168.2.x.
2. Make sure the network metric settings on the two interfaces favor the ANAN interface (smaller metric value on the ANAN interface). This might slow down web browsing a tiny bit, but again every advantage you give the ANAN interface helps.
3. Get a dual port NIC and, if possible, go into the BIOS and disable the motherboard NIC. On some computers this is impossible, on others it is mandatory. Best to play it safe and not have the motherboard NIC possibly interfering with things.
4. Be wary of crappy cards. There's really no way to know, but these things are all so cheap that it is possible to get bad/counterfeit product. My first dual NIC card had a bad port that would act up occasionally. If things are not working reliably strongly consider another card before blaming yourself or your setup.