10-12-2012, 03:46 PM
True but i have 3 pc's 2 xbox's an 2 mobiles plus friends mobiles an laptops that connect to the network.
If say my home pc was 192.168.1.3 but my home pc was off an a friend or mobile connected it could use that local ip if it was the next free ip in line! then i trun my pc on as the local ip is in use my pc would be set a new ip.
I know you know your networking an im not picking just pointing this out. Setting your IPs to set mac address's is always better if your planning to port forward to that lan ip.
For me if i do port forward I always use a bind setting in my router to lock a lan ip to a mac address.
The only real benefit of forcing a local IP, is if the network ever does go down (ie lost power). You wouldn't have to change the IP for the ports on the router (which only takes a split second). Forcing your computer to use a specific IP through IPv4 just makes it so your computer is always known as 192.168.1.[CeNsOrEd]. If you don't set these the next time the router reboots itself (loses power), it will re-identify the network. Which could result in a different local IP, computers IP addresses is assigned by the router. Tho like I said, these local IP's are mostly static and never change without a reset. It could prove beneficial if you maybe have a machine that you remote connect to (no monitor, keyboard, mouse). But otherwise if your home loses power, the computer doesn't turn itself back on. The downtime would be the same either way. To sum it up, the only benefit from it is saving the time of going into your router once every few months and changing the IP address in two boxes. I don't see anyone running a server from home any time soon anyhow, it would be best to stick to Hamachi or LanBridger so your home security isn't at risk.