Kam Leo: >>> Replace the hub with a switch. Tim: >> The advice is still good. Or is what you're using actually a switch and >> you've just called it a hub? James Wilkinson: > I pressed "list-reply" to ask "why should you think a hub is more > *reliable* than a switch? A switch is going to be faster, both because > it can handle more than one connection at a time, and because it's > likely to support faster connections. But they should both *work* to > connect several computers." While the advice to use a switch rather than a hub wasn't going to be a solution to the problem at hand, it's still good advice to use a switch instead of a hub. Hence my comment, and the way I worded it (not as a solution). A hub is like a party-line. Everything communicates amongst everything else at once. You get away with this without too many problems on a network that's mostly idle. A switch only passes data between the relevent ports, as much as is practical (if it can't separate traffic, it will act as a hub). On a more busy network, this helps. Traffic is more likely to go directly between peers, which allows several different directly between peers traffic all to work independently of each other. This separation of traffic also aids in security, traffic going between A and B isn't seen by C, so it can't snoop on it. > Or do you just think that hubs, being older, are more likely to go wrong > than modern switches? The age of a device *may* play a role. Older gear *may* have a worse chance of having a fault than something newer. Particularly if it's had a hard life (e.g. we've got a switch which has an outdoor LAN cable connected to it, it tends to need turning off then on again to reset it if there's been a lightning storm - at some stage, I expect it won't survive a storm), but age alone does add to equipment breakdown, particularly if wasn't built well in the first place (e.g. some of these devices get awfully hot, and that isn't good for longevity). -- (Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
