How To Choose Between Network Hubs And Switches?

Answer 1

If you are setting up a local area network (LAN), don’t get confused by the terms network hub and network switch. They refer to completely different devices. A hub allows all computers connected to the network to communicate with one another. A switch is a little smarter than a hub; it can direct traffic to specific devices.

To put this into perspective, consider a network with four linked computers. In technical terminology, hubs work according to broadcast models, while switches operate by virtual circuit models. If two of those four computers talk to one another, the hub will simply pass all network traffic to each of the four computers. Switches can figure out which piece of information is going where, and so can pass data on to the specific computer the sender is trying to reach.

Switches have the advantage over hubs: not only does the specificity ensure greater privacy and security, but the switch actually creates a connection within the network and thus preserves the computer’s bandwidth speed. Hubs do not have this ability, as they split all the bandwidth between the four computers equally. This can substantially slow down the speed of the network. Another advantage of switches is that they can receive data from a computer and send data to that computer at the same time, allowing greater network usage efficiency.

The above notwithstanding, hubs cost much less than switches do. If your network has only two or three computers, getting a hub may be a better option that a switch.

Switches are incredible sophisticated devices capable of telling the difference between data packets. Not only that, but switches can forward packets to different destinations. Network switches work similar to routers, but the difference between the two is that switches work within networks while routers work between networks. Routers send information from a computer in one network to a computer in another network; switches send information between two computers in the same network. Switches can increase the total bandwidth available to networks as well as clean up the traffic congestion and provide a stabilized network protocol.