difference between switch and hub

[tremmor]

had an old hub years ago. got rid of it. It was old. I needed something recently for the house. (basement and another room). Still having a hard time making the comparison and benefits.

Besides the answer to the question above i bought from a office supply store a WD 8 port gigabit ethernet switch. Havent opened yet and didn't want to spend more for Internet. Guessing that this will meet my needs. Did not open box yet and asking for comments. Im willing to change if needed but need to know.

thanks

 

[Aastii]

When data is sent to a switch it is routed to the device that it was intended for and the data is only sent to the port that the device is connected to. When data is sent to a hub it is then sent out to all ports, including those that the data is not intended for, creating more traffic and more collisions.

The result is that, generally, a switch will give faster data transfer rates than a hub will do if there are large amounts of data being sent and/or if there are many devices speaking to each other simultaneously. For how they work in the network from a user's perspective, they are both same (for the most part, and so far as you are concerned for your application), bar how they operate.

Generally hubs are cheaper because of what was said above and they will not have the bells and whistles that come with certain switches too. The switch you have now will work just fine, the same as the hub before was, there is no need to change or do anything differently than before.

 

[tremmor]

Good enough Aastii.