switch or hub 1

[tim7]

I am about to extend my school's network. At present we have a 18 pcs using a hub in one room. I want to add a switch about 50 metres away from it for 20 computers in classes and from here another switch for a dedicated room with about 14 computers in it( if funds allow). Due to cost I was looking at Dlink 10/100 switches. Does this sound feasible? Should I swap my existing overloaded hub for a switch? Would I need to beef up the link between hub and first switch? The Dlink switch allows for a fibre optic link. Sorry for all the questions, I am new to this.
Regards
Tim7

 

[TimRegester]

From one tim to another and I have just cooincidentally built a school network. The setup should be:

50M UTP or fibre
PCs ------SWITCH1=====================SWITCH2---PCs

If you use the UTP option you may need a crossover patch at one end of the link, unless the switches do MDI/MDIX Autosensing. the fibre needs no cross.

I would definitely swap the hub for a switch but keep it as a spare. If there is a server off the switch in a switch-hub scenario the hub users will never get a look in, your hub users will really notice the change. If the fibre link is gigabit you should have bags of headroom.

I hope this helps

 

[tim7]

timregester
thank you for the help. I will certainly be replacing the hub with a switch. The mention of gigabit link between the existing suite and the switch that will be about 50 metres away - could you tell me if this is possible with cat5e cable. I was thinking of a 4/5 port gigabit switch with one port for server, one for router, one for new switch and a cat5e link to new switch 50 metres away. Do i only have to change the network card in the server to make a gigabit link?
Sorry if i sound unsure but am willing to take advice
thanks
tim7

 

[TimRegester]

Good quality Cat5e will handle gigabit. You could put a gigabit nic in the server but you need to make sure the server is powerful enough to handle the gigabit levels of throughput, older Server I/Os could not shift more than around 200Mbps so gigabit would be somewhat pointless.