Switch or Hub?

[wisfal]

I was wondering which I should get; switch or hub? I would be wanting to be able to play multiplayer games and in the future have high speed internet. So which do you think I should get? Switch or Hub?

 

[Goosemaster]

1. Switches and Hubs are LAN technology.
2. for Broadband internet, you need a router
3. many routers come with built in switches.


Hubs are crap these days. Switches are where its at.

I could go into detail about hubs vs switches, but all I will say is that switches can easy and effectively support many clients at full speed. In addition, hubs cause a lot of [now] unecessary traffic which screws with your networks efficiecy.


basically, I recommend you get a router with a built in switch. USe right now for LAN gaming, and then just plug in the broadband to the WAN link when you get it.


cheers!

 

[JackMDS]

Since Switch is a better technology, and prices of 4-6 ports devices are the same then?..what is the question?

If you want to share the Internet.

Link to: AnandTech - FAQ. Basic Options for Internet Connection Sharing

Link to: AnandTech - FAQ. Hubs, routers, switches, DSL, LANs, WANs...?

 

[MiniDoom]

Hubs are bad....very very bad...

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
Hubs are bad....very very bad...

Well read this...

Log here, and click on Switch vs. Hub. scottmac.net

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: JackMDS

Originally posted by: rdubbz420
Hubs are bad....very very bad...

Well read this...

Log here, and click on Switch vs. Hub. scottmac.net

Nice...LONG ASS READ!

Acutally it was quite interest3ing. I was surprised that Hubs could still keep the throughput levels so high and the access times so low.


EVEN SO, try htat test again...with 24 clients...and 24 SIMULTANEOUS streams:evil:

Switches DO have a purpose

 

[ScottMac]

For every additional computer trying to use a port (many-to-one) the bandwidth is shared, just like a hub.... except with a switch, the frame is buffered and in danger of timing out. On a hub, the frame wouldn't be sent until the line is clear. ... no time out ( or at least not as a result of anything the hub did).

Many-to-one is a switch's worst nightmare. There is no apparent gain. Full duplex won't help you if the frame can't get an egress port.

As long as the situation is many-to-many, the parallelism of the switch is an advantage (along with full duplex): Many-to-one, there is no performance gain whatsoever over a hub.

This was the type of discussion that spawned the test. We could probably pick it up again for the newer folks on the board with a "switch is always better than a hub" attitude.

FWIW

Scott

 

[jjyiz28]

also 2 types of switches that i knwo of, cut through and store and forward.

ct just shuttles the info to the ports, s&f checks to see that it was error free so the errors don't get propagated. ct is faster, but if it gets errors will slow down.

anyone know in real world which is better? prolly won't matter as much, but just curios