Switch/hub whats the difference?

[Lizardkng]

Ive heard that a switch has a notable performance increase over a hub.

Whats the difference in a hub and a switch?

We currenly have a DSL line into a Dell PowerEdge 1650 server with 2 NICs, NIC #2 is connected to a 3Com 24 port hub, and out to 8 clients.

Hearing that a switch has a performance boost over a hub, should I consider an upgrade?

What type of performance will increase, overall network speed, internet speed, file transfers?

Ive tried to look up on other sites, but I cant seem to find a definitive answer.

 

[jimbopalmer]

Firstly in your scenario both the switch and the hub are most likely faster than the DSL, so internet performance will not rise if you upgrade.

the next consideration, that a switch can allow full duplex communication, will show more promise at the server, the ability to both send and receive packets at once, instead of send or receive as in a hub, may double throughput if the traffic into and out of your server is near capacity. If your second NICs activity light is almost always on, there is hope for a switch to double file transfer speeds.

the real advantange of a switch, that multiple conversations between different devices do not block one another, does not seem to be of use to your current sceanario since virtually all conversaations are with the server. If your internet came through a seperate router, or you had multiple servers, or a high volume network attached printer, then some conversations from the clents would not go to the server, and the switch would allow these multiple conversations to be nonblocking, unlike the hub. as described, you will not gain this advantage, as every packet either starts or ends in the server.

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.