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Question from a network hardware newbie

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by vanalex

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I'm implementing a network for 30 users without a lot of traffic and where the distance betwen the users and the servers doens?t exceed 100 meters (tipical UTP max distance). Would a Hub be enough for regulating traffic or should I go with a switch?If so do switches need to be configured like routers or do they create their "routing" tables automaticaly in memory has the books say they do? Security is not an issue here so no need to further segment the network.

Thanks in advance

3 replies

by timwalsh

Go with a switch.

With a hub, the bandwidth coming into the hub is shared by all connected users. Data packets are "addressed" to a specific MAC address. Since a hub is essentially a "dumb" device, it doesn't know whether the recipient is connected to the hub or not. Thus all traffic is sent to all connected computers. Also since a hub has no means or flow control, all connected computers are in the same collision domain (all connected computers could try and talk at the exact same time and thus collide with each other with the end result being not traffic getting through).

With a switch, each port has access to the full amount of connected bandwidth.

Most Switches do not require any configuration. Most switches do not "route" in the strictest sense. They do maintain ARP table with the MAC address of each connected computer (to be able to send traffic only to the addressee instead of all connected computers). The ARP table is created automatically. The switch also conducts traffic flow control by creating a momentary virtual circuits with each individual computer, which alleviates data collisions.

Hope this all makes sense.

by vanalex

Thanks, I knew the difference between both, I just wasn't sure of when it would be reasonable to pay for a switch in terms of number of users and traffic.

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