Internet Connection Sharing vs. Hub-Router

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I have a techie who says I sould use a hub/router for shared
connections, that it lets the regular datas network run faster. I
have a three station network.

ICS is a resource load on the workstation hosting it. Considering how cheap
a good hardware firewall/router is these days, I'd go for that. Also means
that if one computer breaks, you don't lose Internet access on the
others....

Make sure you get a router with a decent SPI firewall built in for added
security. The Netgear FR114P is about $80 IIRC and works quite well for
small networks.

 

[DH]

I have a techie who says I sould use a hub/router for shared connections,
that it lets the regular datas network run faster. I have a three station
network.

Any opinions?

Thanks,
Ron Gaynor

Your techie is correct and I won't get into the numerous reasons why, but if
you have a techie that you have to question, the problem is the techie. Get
a new "techie".

Okay, I will get into the problems with ICS. If you are a home user and you
want to learn about networking, ICS is the way to go. It will make you
learn about DHCP and it's troubleshooting. If you are not interested in
troubleshooting and learning and want a troublefree system, use a router. If
your a business, you definitely need a new "techie". I wouldn't even
consider ICS for a business that requires fast and reliable connections.

Speed? - Again, the router is the way to go. Probably not a tremendous
difference but faster.

HIH,

Dave H.

 

[Ron Gaynor]

I have a techie who says I sould use a hub/router for shared connections,
that it lets the regular datas network run faster. I have a three station
network.

Any opinions?

Thanks,
Ron Gaynor

 

[Richard Urban]

Listen to him!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

I have a techie who says I sould use a hub/router for shared
connections, that it lets the regular datas network run faster. I
have a three station network.

ICS is a resource load on the workstation hosting it. Considering how cheap
a good hardware firewall/router is these days, I'd go for that. Also means
that if one computer breaks, you don't lose Internet access on the
others....

I doubt that running ICS places a noticeable load on any computer.
Consider the hardware in a typical hub/router. My SMC Barricade has a
40 MHz CPU and less than 1MB of memory. Any recent computer is at
least 50 times as fast and has hundreds of times as much memory.

Even so, I'd go with a hardware firewall/router whenever possible,
too.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Jetro]

Heavily loaded ICS host may poorly perform either the Internet access or
Applications or both. OTOH, the SOHO hardware routers with NAT suffer the
same low throughput. If one of the computers got loaded with 200-300Kbps
download or you got the multiple active LAN-WAN connections (large NAT
table), all the other boxes just crawl in the Internet.
Enterprise-level (Cisco) products are far better. Nevertheless, nobody
perfect indeed.