Easy one for ya...What is the difference between a hub and a switch?

[jdini76]

Just what it says in the title...

 

[JackMDS]

Hub shoots all the info to all Networks? computers.

Switch sends it to the target computer.

As a result, Network with Switch is more efficient.

However, it starts to make a difference when the numbers of computers on the Network exceed 10, don?t expect any significant difference on three computer Home Network.

 

[ScottMac]

A Hub is a multi-port repeater. Every attached device thinks it's sitting aon a common chunk of wire (i.e., every device is on one collision domain).

A Switch is like a multi-port bridge. Each port is it's own collision domain. It still propagates broadcasts & multicasts. If more than one pair of discreet devices are in-session, then each pair will get it's own virtual circuit through the switch...an apparent multiplication of bandwidth. If you have multiple devices all trying to talk to the same resource (out the same port), then the switch MAY be at a disadvantage, depending on the nature of the traffic.

Some switches (mostly the commercial variety) have additional features for broadcast control, packet prioritiy, virtual LANs, etc.

That's it in a nutshell.

FWIW

Scott

 

[jdini76]

Thanks, that helps I am adding a fourth computer to my home network. But i didn;t want to run the cable all the way down to my hub on the first floor. I was thinking of just splitting the cable that goes to my computer with another hub and runing the fourth computer to that one. I didn't know if it would degrade the performance of my network if I did so.

 

[Garion]

That's a very common scenario - The hub would work just fine uplinked with a single Cat5 cable. We do it all the time in the 'biz. Not ideal, but very functional.

- G