Whats the difference between a switch and a hub.

[Kevin C]

I have a small peer to peer sharing network of 4 machines and my 8 port
switch which has been working well for 3 or four years has died. A friend
has said that he has an 8 port hub which I can have. Can I use this? Whats
the difference between this hub and a switch he says he thinks it has to be
configured if so I may be out of luck as we have no info on the hub.

 

[J.C. Hornbeck [MSFT]]

On most small LANs you can replace a switch with a hub but the big advantage
to a switch is that when a packet comes in on one port it is not sent to all
other ports on the device (as it is with a hub). This can cause extra
network traffic on that you really don't want to see in larger networks.
Chances are that if you only have 4 machines a standard hub would work just
fine.

J.C. Hornbeck

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[Reni Ninan]

In addition, switches are full duplex while hubs are half duplex while hubs
share a single LAN segment, switches have their ports segmented. Also in
switches (depending on capabilities) you might be able to set up virtual
switch ports for security (an other potential reasons).

 

[Rakesh Chanana [MSFT]]

Also checkout one of these links:
http://www.duxcw.com/faq/network/hubsw.htm
http://www.bsnl.in/Telecomguide.asp?intNewsId=2804&strNewsMore=more
http://www.darron.net/network/secondpage.html
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Thanks,
Rakesh Chanana [MSFT]

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