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ICS - hub or switch?

Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
I have a few computers downstairs that I want to run Internet Connection Sharing through. The main computer is an iMac with a wireless card. I want to setup ICS on it and share it with a couple other computers. Am I better of using a switch or a hub? I have both, dunno if it matters or not.
 
On a small LAN you won't see much difference in performance between a 10/100 hub or switch but given the choice of the two, since you have both, then the switch is what you'd use. Dedicated bandwidth and if your transferring large files on multiple computers you will see the difference. For internet sharing the difference would be negligible.
 
It does matter depending on the amount of traffic each system will produce. Both will work, but:

In general, a hub is just a multiport repeater in that it will send every packet from any system out all ports except the originating port.

A switch keeps track of the MAC address (it keeps a MAC address table) of the NIC that's attached to each switch port and only forwards traffic to the appropriate port destination, saving much bandwidth. You can also run your NICs in full duplex using a switch. Switches are essentially a multiport bridge.

If you want to learn more about the difference, search up "switch" and/or "hub" on www.wikipedia.org.
 
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