Hub vs. Switch

[mikeshn]

What is the main difference between Hub and switch? What is good for a small home network?
Thanks

 

[SaigonK]

The difference is as follows:

You have a 5 port HUB
You have a 5 port SWITCH
Each is 100/mb

The HUB uses 100/mb divided by the amount of ports available, thus it would allow for up to 20/mb per port if every port were in use,
The SWITCH uses 100/mb on EACH port, meaning all 5 ports have a full 100/mb available to them, it isnt spread across all other ports like a hub,

in the past i would say get a hub for home, but nowadays switches are just a s cheap and the extra bandwith (if you intend to use it) is more than worth it!

 

[gaidin123]

A 100Mbit hub will share 100Mbps among whatever number of ports it has.

A 100Mbit switch gives 100Mbps up and 100Mbps down (full duplex) to each port that it has.

You really really really want to buy a switch for any use as the price difference between consumer hubs and switches is basically nothing nowadays.

Gaidin

Edit: doh! Ya beat me to it!

 

[ktwebb]

Little more to it than that. Here's some decent reading.

http://www.proxim.com/learn/library/guides/gd2001-07-17.html

http://www.enetdepot.net/hubandswitch.html

 

[mikeshn]

What is more expensive, switch or HUB?

 

[SaigonK]

Nowadays they are about the same price. $5 bux here or there...definitely worth it to get a switch.
The explaination is simple enough....

 

[Nutz]

Not to take away from this thread, but both of the following FAQs address this issue.

http://www.digitaldeities.net/articles/faq/faq.html

http://faq.arstechnica.com/?s=5

The simplest expanation is a Hub is a multiport repeater and a Switch is essentially a multiport bridge. Not the most technical explanation, but its just about true.

 

[Valhalla1]

also network traffic going thru a hub is broadcast to every port on the hub, so every node connected to the hub has to process every packet coming across the hub to strip the packet headers and see if the packet belongs to it.. a switch has a switching table which knows what [edit]MAC address[/edit] is on what port, and it forwards the packet only to that port..

switches end a collision domain.. I have a 10mbit hub on this network, and a 100mbit switch on the other.. when even just 2 pc's are downloading from the internet, the collision light on the hub is going crazy, but no collisions at all on the switched network when copying gigs of data across multiple nodes simultaneously

 

[spidey07]

A switch will indeed broadcast frames to every port on the switch. Same is true for multicast frames. That is if they are broadcast frames to begin with. ScottMac did some interesting tests that proved a hub is actually faster than a switch in very limited situations.

But, year is 2002 ya know. Hubs really have died like a dinosaur.

 

[ktwebb]

"a switch has a switching table which knows what ip address"

MAC not IP. Multiport Bridge. Layer two. At least the ones you get at Best Buy et al....

 

[Valhalla1]

<< A switch will indeed broadcast frames to every port on the switch. Same is true for multicast frames >>




I am not talking about broadcast packets... A hub broadcasts EVERY packet.. a switch does not.

and your right ktwebb , its a MAC address table, not ip address table.. that would be a router or sweet layer 3 switch