>I'm trying to speed up the schools network where my wife teaches. I want to replace the 16 port hub with a switch. The treasurer told me that the switches I see >for >prices around $70 are not true switches, that a real switch is around $300 and there a managed switch, these cheap switches are just fancy hubs.
>My question on this is:
>Are the cheap switches no better than a hub?
A hub will always send a packet out all of it ports (where all computers hear what one speaker is saying). A switch will only send packets out the port it "knows" the destination computer resides. The true question about speeding up their network is the number of computers on the switch. If it is just 1 hub, a cheap switch will help to a degree. If there are a lot of computers talking through the hub (or multiple hubs chained together), a managed switch has greater memory for increased load.
The managed switches (Ex: Cisco Catalyst) will also learn each computers addressing and only send packets out 1 port. What they really do is allow you to create VLANs or multiple private LANs in 1 switch. (divide accounting's network from operation's).
The ture question is the amount of traffic. If it is constant and heavy, the managed switch is worth the investment for a large school.
>I was also told that a network is no faster than the slowest computer on it. My argument is that with a switch, each computer can run at it's max speed because other >computers won't slow it down.
>Question:
>With a 10/100 switch, can a slower computer (maybe one with a 10mbps NIC card) slow down another computer (one with a 100mbps NIC card)?
The answer is no. A switch will allow full duplex communication. Hubs are Half duplex where the message (even hearing your own) is sent out all of the ports.
