Difference between Switch and Hub

[ding5550123]

I've never really understood the difference.

IS there a difference in an LAN Party application?

 

[Fardringle]

A hub broadcasts all packets to every device on the network. A switch only sends packets to the intended destination(s).

Since most LAN games are broadcasted anyway, it probably won't make much of a difference which one you use for your LAN party.

 

[spidey07]

Fardringle, you're a little off.

A hub operates at layer1 - it REPEATS the incoming electricial signaling across all ports. It effectively acts at a big bus. It doesn't care about broadcasting as that operates at layer2.
A switch operates at layer2 - it BRIDGES incoming FRAMES to the intended receiver of that frame. A frame/L2 header for ethernet contains the source and destination datalink layer address.

At the datalink layer there are three kinds of frames - unicast (1 to 1), broadcast (1 to all) and multicast (1 to many). LAN games do not use broadcast traffic except for possibly finding other servers or players. From there it is all unicast - client and server.

Is there any difference for a lan party? Yes, hubs are dead, the year is 2008. With a hub additional delay is added to the sending and receiving of frames if there is a collision. Switches don't experience collisions because every port can send/receive at the same time. A hub is like a big walkie-talkie, somebody has to finish sending before anybody else can. If you want the details google CSMACD.

 

[Brutus04]

I agree with spidey07. A switch will send traffic to only one MAC address thus limiting collisions in the domain...cool Spiderman case...

 

[JackMDS]

If the LAN is smaller than 10 computers you would Not see any functional difference between a Hub or a Switch.

Written by scottmac, http://www.mail-archive.com/fr...ebsd.org/msg12094.html

 

[freegeeks]

hubs are not dead, if you work in networking you will sometimes need one to take traces when a span port is not an option

btw, buy a little switch

 

[JackMDS]

For consumers it is really a moot point, it very hard to find a 4-8 ports hub in the market.

In most instances this question comes up from someone that already have a Hub.

To tell End-User that is using few computers, Dump your hub and get a switch, it is better is Ridicules.

 

[spidey07]

Jack, not a lot of 100 Base-T hubs were made so that ability to do 10/100 full with more than two computers, especially for small packets like games that are delay sensitive it just doesn't make any sense.