I'm about to rent a half rack with a 10 Mbps line. However, I need to purchase a hub or switch. Anyone know which one I should buy and the advantages/disadvantages? Which brand should I buy (under $200)?

First of all if your going to spend money on half a rack with 10mbs connection, you surely can spend more than 200.00 all 200.00 is going to get you is a cheap linksys switch.

You def. need a switch, so drop the hub idea, also you should be looking into no less than one of HP's Procurve model 2xxx switches, a 20 port switch i believe runs around 600.00 but i could be way off.

Trust me a switch is not something you want to compormise on.

umm...what charles said :).

Seriously...look into getting a switch, you are going to need the capacity, and features a switch will give you. Of course, I recommend Cisco, over crappy HP, but that's just me :D.

If you don't have that much start up cash lying around check out e-bay. You can get a Cisco 1924 for about $400.

Ok, I'm just wondering because we've been using cheap $40 hubs on our T-1's over here... and everything seems fine. Will switches offer more performance?

Also, is a switch as easy to setup as a hub? All I had to do with the hub was simply connect the router to it... and then connect our servers to the hub.

Thanks,
David

Switches work in the same manner as hubs (i.e. connectivity), but you get much better performance from a switch, as well as better management.

A hub will share its total bandwidth amongst all connections, while a switch will devote a full amount to its request.

A switch is also more secure and prevents packet sniffing between servers. Forget the idea of a hub.

Originally posted by archangel777

Also, is a switch as easy to setup as a hub? All I had to do with the hub was simply connect the router to it... and then connect our servers to the hub.


As has been pointed out, a switch will give you much better performance than a hub.

It also provides you with better management features, such as securtiy enhancements, bandwidth control, access lists, etc.

Switch is more manageable. You can do fancy things with them like fastetherchanel etc. In anyway, don't want to get too deep but go with Cisco's 2900 switches. They come in 12/24 ports and even have one or two 100mb port. These things run for every, I've been using them for years and haven't had any problems.

Go with a HP Procenture 4k

Youll be happy.

Joe

If you got the cash def. go for the cisco their the cream of the crop otherwise i would say 3com or HP are next in line.

Is it going to be used for hosting websites ? if yes then most definitely go w/ a switch...

I don't have any brand preference... either Cisco or HP whichever i can get it at a cheaper price :P


cheers,
elijah john

Ok, I just got rid of my cheap hubs for the 1.5 Mbps connections and replaced them with $175 switches.

For the 10 Mbps line, I guess I'll invest in a Cisco switch. Thanks for all the help, guys.

Some points to consider:
1. Switches are not more secure than hubs. Excluding a few very expensive switches (which technically are routers not switches anyway) all switches can be forced into hub mode by an attacker, either by MAC spoofing or simply by overloaded the MAC lookup table on the switch.

2. Switches won't necessarily improve performance. A switch will allow two packets to be forwarded between two pairs of unconflicting ports simultaneously... but if all of your data goes to or from the same port (as is the case for a network of servers connected to a single outside line) that won't necessarily help you.

However, switches -- some switches at least -- are cheap so I really don't see why anyone would want to go with a hub anyway. Whichever you do, get something you can run at 100mbps... it isn't any more expensive and there is no reason to add a 10mbps bottleneck into your system.

The difference between switches and hubs:

A hub is basically a multi-port repeater. A repeater is a device that takes an electrical signal in one line, generates an identical copy, and forwards it on to the next line. It does not understand the protocol being used on the line, it only repeats the electrical signal.

A switch is a multi-port bridge. A bridge is a device that accepts data on one line, generates an identical copy, and forwards it onto the next line. It does understand the protocol being used on the line, and is repeating the data within the protocol, NOT the electrical signal.

Effective differences:

1. On a hub, a collision domain is all attached ports; on a switch, a collision domain is only the switch and the line the collision occured on. What does this mean? On a hub, _all_ attached devices can collide with each other, and they must each resolve collisions between them. On a switch, when a collision occurs, only the switch and the one device where the collision occured see it and must resolve it. This saves lots of bandwidth.
2. On a hub, all traffic is broadcast to all ports. A port sending 1mbit/s of bandwidth takes up 1mbit/s of bandwidth on all attached ports. On a switch, the switch learns addresses, and only delivers traffic to the target node. This also saves bandwidth.
3. Since the switch only delivers to the target node, it does increase security somewhat. It makes it less likely that an attacker will be able to sniff traffic. It does not make it impossible, however.
4. Ethernet, for example, has a limited range due to collisions -- the specification requires that a collision be detected within a certain amount of time, otherwise, the collision did not happen. Hubs, since they simply _extend_ a network segment and cannot resolve collisions, do not extend this range. Switches, since they copy data and can resolve collisions between segments do.
5. Switches often run their own operating system, and thus have many other features, such as remote management, statistics, etc. Hubs sometimes do too, but they are exeedingly rare.
6. Hubs, since they usually don't have the logic the switches do, are almost always less expensive. Switches, since they have the ability to understand the protocols, gather statistics, etc, need to have additional hardware -- and thus are more expensive.

Rule of thumb -- if you can afford a switch, buy one. It has many, many advantages over hubs.

One important issue...

A Switch can do FULL DUPLEX, which can make a big difference for a web site given the many small packets going in/out at the same time... collisions are pretty common even on a single port given the traffic both ways.

I personally think there is nothing wrong with cheap switches for web hosting purposes if used correctly. It all depends on what you are doing... but if a Hub is even an option, that implies a unmanaged switch would be fine. I would always recommend a cheap switch ($50-$100 Linksys / Compex job) over a hub... the full duplex alone justifies the slight increase in cost.

Originally posted by Tarin
The difference between switches and hubs:

A hub is basically a multi-port repeater. A repeater is a device that takes an electrical signal in one line, generates an identical copy, and forwards it on to the next line. It does not understand the protocol being used on the line, it only repeats the electrical signal.

A switch is a multi-port bridge. A bridge is a device that accepts data on one line, generates an identical copy, and forwards it onto the next line. It does understand the protocol being used on the line, and is repeating the data within the protocol, NOT the electrical signal.

Bingo! Don't take into consideration which one is cheaper, Switches and Hubs are TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

Just like Tarin said Hubs are multipoint repeaters. All the Hub does is amplify the signal sent from each node and send it to the other ports.

A Switch has the ability of selecting the path for signal delivery. It will basically send the signal through a specific port, therefore a specific cable segment.

Each one of these devices operate at different layers of the OSI model. Again, they are totally different!

If I were you, I would get a Cisco Switch ;)