RIV@NVX

Can someone answer this:

1. What is hub and switch, what is the difference between them?
2. If I have two 10/100 cards and a crossover UTP cable, will they work on 100Mbit?

__________________
-- Vedran

Shaith

Yep.

Quote:

1. What is hub and switch, what is the difference between them?

A hub is a device that connects computers together via networking cable of some sort. Usually this is unshielded twisted pair, or UTP. Bandwidth is shared among all ports, with all ports becoming active when any network traffic is present. You can see this on hubs which have traffic indicator lights. As a result, computers wanting to send network traffic must wait until a break in the transmission to begin their own send. Hubs work fine for small peer-to-peer networks.

A switch is also a device which connects computers together via the same networking cable. However, where a switch differs is traffic handling. Traffic across a switch is directed from source port to destination port, with all other ports being inactive. Because of this, machines do not have to wait to send traffic. The switch will automatically step down the available bandwidth for current transmissions so that the new transmission may have a share, and then step the bandwidth back up once completed.

Some switches also have the ability to allocate a minimum available bandwidth, a maximum available bandwidth, protocol priority, port priority, and many also handle full duplex operation, meaning you can send and receive at the same time, which greatly increases your network performance as you don't have to stop transmitting, receive an acknowledgement, and start transmitting again. Switches also reduce the amount of network traffic which suffers from collisions, which degrade performance severely when they occur. Switches are indicated anywhere a hub is used as they are far more scalable. However, they are also more expensive.

Quote:

2. If I have two 10/100 cards and a crossover UTP cable, will they work on 100Mbit?

You may find that you have to manually set the cards to use 100 mbit speeds instead of 10 mbit speeds. Also, you will not get a true 100 mbits, closer to about 40 in real tests. But for most purposes, this will work sufficiently for a single peer-to-peer.

As with all networks, your choice of cabling can be a key factor in performance. UTP cable is fine for most situations, but not desirable if you're running in an area rich in RF interference or filled with lots of ballasts for flourescent lighting - it's best to avoid these areas if possible when cabling, or suspend and shield your cable. There is also shielded cabling available that will provide some relief from RFI. And in extreme noise situations, optical cable can be utilized as it does not suffer from RFI - but the cost goes up considerably, particularly in cases where your hubs and cards do not have optical connections, requiring a transition device to switch from 10/100 base to fiber and back again.

RIV@NVX

Thanks. So an example - if I have switch can I play some game (example WarCraft III or Diablo II) in more than 2 players and will it have better preformerance with switch or hub?

__________________
-- Vedran

digitalwanderer

A switch should have better performance as it intelligently routes the packets, a hub just sort of let's 'em link up. But you can have more than 2 users on a hub, and they're a bunch cheaper.

My home network is an odd mish-mash of 10/100 cards in my three rigs all connected together thru a cheap linksys 10/100 4-port HUB. My remaining open port I use for either friends pc's I'm working on or I can uplink my 4-port hub thru it to another hub if'n I ever need more than 4 systems on my network.

It's a few years older is mainly why I have a hub, but if it's just for home networking and you're interested in saving a few bucks I'd go the hub route. ANY lan is gonna have a killer game networking connect!

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RIV@NVX

Thanks for your replies, network experts.
I will get a switch if I get it for cheap on auction, but if not, I will get a hub.

__________________
-- Vedran

reno

I wouldn't recommend a switch for anything less than 4 PCs in one network, ping times will still be in the teens, transfer rates will still be high, traffic won't get too congested...really the only things you'd have to worry about was two computers transfering a 300 mb file (doom 3) while you were trying to deathmatch with someone else...that's pretty...well, I guess it's not rare, but...a hub would do fine for you. I think.

RIV@NVX

OK, I will look for one.
Question to Shaith (or anyone who knows): How to set to 100Mbps manually?

__________________
-- Vedran