Nat to overload or not overload?

[bertieuk]

I have a arrange of IPs that I want to NAT. These total 500 possible machines.

Can I nat overload on a pool of say 4 ip addresses?
What is sensible as far the number of internal machines to an external IP.

Not all 500 will connect at the same time.

Thanks SI

 

[lgarner]

The general rule is that each public address can support about 64000 translations. I don't think there's any significant performance issue in using one or multiple addresses. As I recall, the Pix uses the first address for the first computer, the second for the second one, and oveloads the last one anyway. I imagine the routers work similarly.

 

[baddos]

overload one IP and save yourself the headache.