[techtalk] network speeds...

[BobTFish]

At 07:33 17/05/00, Walt wrote:
<snip>
>I have a 10/100 8 port switch and 100 24 port hub.
>Currently, I'm running everything out of the 24
>port hub, thinking that things will be faster on the
>same hub than if I have to patch the hub to the
>switch. Does this make sense or is a switch really
>that much better that it'll make up for any loss?

Yes, get the switch in there...

Plug the most used 7 computers (servers or whatever) into the switch and 
plug one port of the switch into the hub using a crossover cable. (Or you 
can plug it into an uplink port on the hub using a normal cable)

Every box that is attached to the switch should be set up to use 
full-duplex (meaning it can transmit and receive at the same time.) This is 
usually a software option but is also a card config program option on some 
cards. (3com comes to mind here).

With a switch every station can transmit at 100Mb/s and recieve at 100Mb/s 
all at the same time.. With the hub only one station can transmit at a time 
and there are also collisions meaning that there is time spent not 
transmitting anything, just resolving those..

Naturally not every box can transmit to one server at 100Mb/s however the 
server can transmit to all the boxen it serves at 100Mb/s and 
*simultaniously* get acknowledgements back from 10 machines at 10Mb/s each..

Ergo, especially if you are using a server based setup then you will see a 
*huge* increase in throughput even if only some of the ports are switched.

BobTFish