Patent ID: 8898339

Claim:
A method of transferring multi-channel data received from a network to a host using a network analyzer card, the network analyzer card comprising: a receiver for receiving plural data frames from a network link on a first channel and a receiver for receiving plural data frames from the network link on a second channel; a descriptor adder configured and arranged to add a descriptor to at least some of the data frames received on the first channel and a descriptor adder configured and arranged to add a descriptor to at least some of the data frames received on the second channel, the descriptors including data about the data frame to which it is attached, the method comprising: receiving data from first and second channels on the receivers of the network analyser card; and, adding a next channel indicator bit in the descriptor associated with received data frames indicative of the next channel on which a data frame was received, storing the data frames with the associated descriptor, whereby when stored in an associated host memory said indicators can be used to directly merge data from said first and second channels in a desired order.