Switch vs Hub

Before switches became available, devices called hubs were common.

Hubs were less intelligent network devices that always copied all frames to all ports.

By only copying frames to the destination ports, switches utilize network bandwidth much more effectively than hubs did.

A 10/100 mbps is a good choice these days for basic home networks. This kind of hub will allow you to hook up 10Mbps and 100Mbps devices and network cards on the same network. Furthermore, even if the devices communicate at different speeds, the hub will allow them to talk. Now that the prices have come down to under $50.00, the versatility and speed of these hubs can not be beat.



10/100 Ethernet Hubs are only half duplex - each client can only send OR receive data at a particular time. To take full advantage of your 10/100 Ethernet cards, look into an Ethernet Switch. A switch can operate at full duplex allowing your computers to send and receive at the same time.


A 10/100 Ethernet switch can be considered a faster version of a 10/100 Ethernet hub. Recently switches have come down so far is price that they are readily accessible to consumers.



Ethernet switches allow your Ethernet cards to operate in Full Duplex mode instead of Half Duplex. Full Duplex means that you can be sending and receiving data at the same time. Switches also route traffic directly between ports instead of broadcasting traffic across all ports. This basically means that each port on a switch gets dedicated bandwidth instead of shared bandwidth. When transferring large files between multiple computers, this can make a big difference in how well your lan operates.



Consumer level switches now run only about 20% more than hubs making them a great deal for the speed. Switches are also being incorporated into many of the popular DSL / Cable modem routers being manufactured. I would not be surprised to see some network gear manufacturers stop producing consumer level hubs in the next year or so.

A router is a more sophisticated network device than either a switch or a hub. Like hubs and switches, network routers are typically small, box-like pieces of equipment that multiple computers can connect to. Each features a number of "ports" the front or back that provide the connection points for these computers, a connection for electric power, and a number of LED lights to display device status. While routers, hubs and switches all share similiar physical appearance, routers differ substantially in their inner workings.

Traditional routers are designed to join multiple area networks (LANs and WANs). On the Internet or on a large corporate network, for example, routers serve as intermediate destinations for network traffic. These routers receive TCP/IP packets, look inside each packet to identify the source and target IP addresses, then forward these packets as needed to ensure the data reaches its final destination.

@MSI_33 bro your topic has just shallow info.
there are other major diff. between switch and hub.

~!~ Hub has Single collision and broadcast domain among
all the ports where as switch has seprate collision domain
and single broadcast domain for every port.

~!~ Switch is smart and has ASIC ( Application specific integerated chips)
whereas HUB doesnt have. As a result of this when a packet pases
through switch it tracks it exit and destination path and nore it down
on a table, So when next time packet comes for that destination it doesnt sends that packet to all ports, whereas in case of hub there is no address learning feature.

~!~ switch can breakup a network like ROUTER on layer 2 with the help of VLAN but it is not not possible in case of HUB.

~!~ Switch is costly and hub is cheap.

Thanks reply me if you have anymore doubt, I have good knowledge
about networking and internet security

thank you for these additions .

Switch:

1.switch is an intelligence device.
2.switch will broadcast frames to destinaction based on the MAC address.
3.Switch works in full duplex mode(i.e.,sending and receiving at the same time,two way communication).
4.Switch will flood traffic if the destinatin MAC address is not known or not updated in the MAC table, meaning...switch will forward the incoming frames to all the ports other than from which it is received from.
5.Swich will have ASIC(Application specific integrated chip)
6.Switch will have number of ports through which we can connect number of devices.
7.Switch will have dedicated bandwidth.
8.Layer 2 device.
Hub:

1.hub is not an intelligence device.
2.It will not learn MAC address.
3.Hub works in half duplex mode(one way communication).
4.Hub will flood traffic to all the destination ports regardless of where it should be forwarded.
5.Hub will have limited number of ports.No ASIC.
6.Shared bandwidth.
7.Layer 1 device.
8.Hub is cheape when compared with switch.

hope this is informative.correct me if i am wrong.

Thanks,
Priya.