Switch Questions

I manage a small network (75 desktops, 4 servers) with a single HP
Procurve 4000m switch which has one 1-port gigabit module and the other
7 modules having ten 10/100 ports. I've got two HP Proliant DL servers
with dual gigabit NICS. Obvioulsy, with only one gigabit port, I can
only hook one of the NICS on one of the servers to it. What I'm
thinking of doing is purchasing a separate smaller Linksys 16 port
gigabit switch (under $400) so I can team the dual NICS on both of the
proliant servers to get 2GB on each. FWIW, the two servers are a
terminal server which hosts about 15-20 users (currently dual NIC'd at
200 Mbps), and our main database/file/print server (only one NIC at
1GBps) which sees some pretty heavy use. Both are win2k.

My questions, therefore, are:

1) I'm guessing I can plug the Linksys into the Procurve through the
gigabit port, correct? Should I be using a CAT 6 cable for this or
will CAT 5e do? If this is not how I would hook this up, what are the
options? Should I take the cable coming from the router/firewall and
plug it into the Linksys, then plug the Procurve into the Linksys?

2) Since the Linksys is a managed switch I could configure Port
trunking. Is this something that should always be done when setting up
dual NICS (primary goal is load balancing with lesser emphasis on fault
tolerance)? I tried port trunking when configuring dual 100 NICS on
the terminal server, but saw no readily apparent benefit. HP Procurve
has told me different stories each time I've called them.

3) Will this scenario actually give me noticeable improvements? I
don't want to invest even a little bit of money if improvements are
minimal.

Thanks for any insight into this.
Brian

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