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  • Hubs vs. Switches

    Hi Jammrock

    Yes you can replace a hub with a switch just like that.

    And yes, it is much faster. In some cases.

    The great thing about a switch is that it is much more clever than a hub. For instance it learns which PC is on what plug in the switch. Therefore, when one PC has to get in contact with another PC, it doesn't have to ping all ports to find the right one (which takes time and gives colisions).

    Also, a normal hub (for instance an 8 port 10 MBit) will divide all the bandwidth between all ports in use at any giving time. This means that when PC-A is talking to PC-B and PC-C is talking to PC-D the two tasks will split the 10 MBit capacity. On a switch each task has 10 MBit capacity.

    This is easy demonastraited on a simple network. Lets couple 8 PC together with a hub. The six of the PC's play say Alien vs Predator together. The remaining two PC's does nothing. In this scenario you will notice that all the gaming PC's constantly throw data into the hub. Many times two PC's will do this at the same time so the two bits of data will colide. Therefore the PC's throw the data out again, hoping noone is using the network at that particular moment.

    Since gaming doesn't require large amounts of data transfer, the constant colisions will eat away the effective bandwidth.

    If then the to PC's that do not play the game starts to transfer a file between them selves, they will try to steal bandwidth from the gaming PC's. And due to the large amounts of colisions, the data transfer will be very slow and the gamimg people will instantly start screaming over choppiness in their game.

    I have seen this many times before at smaller parties, which did not feature a switch. At a local party which is held every other weekend, this was how we use to have it. We even would get timeouts on network connections because of the heavy hammering games do.
    Then we finaly got enough money to buy a 8 port switch, and now the network runs silky smooth.

    I hope this did sheed some light for you.

    Ghydda

    ------------------
    A slowly desintegrating nobody, soon with an AMD K7 600 with 256MB Memorycard PC100, Adaptec 2940UW, Adaptec 2904CD, 3 SCSI HD, JVC cooking equipment, Plextor 40Max, SBlive Value with homemade S/PDIF I/O-card and last but not least - Matrox Marvel G200 AGP 16MB SD

    Only thing missing:
    Matrox RT2000




    [This message has been edited by Ghydda (edited 08-17-1999).]
    As I always say: You can get more with a kind word and a 2-by-4 than you can with just a kind word.
    My beloved Parhelia was twotiming with Dan Wood - now she's gone forever and all I got is this lousy T-shirt
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  • #2
    We use the 3Com series of switches in our office.. Linkswitch 1000 (our first) and the new 3300 series. They improved our in-house network at least 50 fold. We were taking almost 2 minutes to start a simple program like GoldMine(TM) and now it takes less than 10 seconds on a slow machine.

    If you run multiple switches, make certain to look at some form of high-speed backbone that transmits the data between switches at a very high rate. 3Com has one that does over 800Mb full-duplex between 3300 series switches. I think they are also coming out with (or already have) gigabit backbone for the higher end switches.
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    • #3
      Thanks guys. I know the theory behind a switch, but have never had any experience with them. After hearing your stories I know what to upgrade my gaming network with.

      I found some decent 8-port LinkSYS switches for around $150, so I will probably get those. The 3Com switches sound awesome, but they are out of my price range. I looked at them on their web page, I too saw the 1 Gb backbone series, very cool stuff. But like I said, 3Com is WAY out of my price range. If I ever build a large network though I will probably grab the 3Com's though.

      Thanks again guys.

      Jammrock

      ------------------
      PIII 540, 256 MB SDRAM, ASUS P3B-F, Winblows 98 SuckyEdition, 18 GB HDD, 6x DVD w/ decoder, (TEMPORARY!!!) Voodoo 3 2000 which will be replaced by a Matrox G400, SB Live!
      “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
      –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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      • #4
        Also note that hubs, bridges and switches are all different equipment.
        I'm referring to you original post that said "[i] have heard they are much better than hubs and bridges" which doesn't make sense while bridges serve a different purpose than hubs and switches.

        B

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        • #5
          Hubs vs. Switches

          Okay folks, I need some input here. I was reading up on networking equipment for my CompTIA Network+ test (which I passed) and I read about switches. I have never used a switch before, but from what I read and have heard they are much better than hubs and bridges. So my question is, has anyone ever played with switches before? Can you just pull your exsisting hub and put in a switch with no problems? Are they really noticably faster than a high speed hub? Enquiring minds want to know.

          Jammrock

          ------------------
          PIII 540, 256 MB SDRAM, ASUS P3B-F, Winblows 98 SuckyEdition, 18 GB HDD, 6x DVD w/ decoder, (TEMPORARY!!!) Voodoo 3 2000 which will be replaced by a Matrox G400, SB Live!
          “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
          –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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          • #6
            Yeah I know the difference between hubs and bridges. On small networks some people will use a switch to act as a bridge. that is why I said hubs and bridges. A switch can do it since it can memorize (usually) 1024 addresses per port.

            Jammrock
            “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
            –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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            • #7
              i recently replaced all of my hubs at home with three asante switches and it really cut down on my network traffic alot.

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              • #8
                I plan on putting 8+ on the network. Traffic will be 1-3 different games plus file transfers. I can get a switch for pretty much the same price as a 10/100 Mb hub so I figured I might as go with a switch instead. Switches just seem like a much better technology. I will admit though, for a small single use network (like everyone playing the same game) and hub is just fine. I am also a big computer phreak so I MUST have all the newest toys.

                Jammrock

                ------------------
                PIII 540, 256 MB SDRAM, ASUS P3B-F, Winblows 98 SuckyEdition, 18 GB HDD, 6x DVD w/ decoder, (TEMPORARY!!!) Voodoo 3 2000 which will be replaced by a Matrox G400, SB Live!
                “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
                –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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