Difference between Smart and Dumb switches. 1

I suppose you mean unmanagable and managable switches. The difference is that an unmanagable switch only sends data to the different ports without any consideration. With a managable switch (depending on brand) you can use VLAN, watch traffic load, use SNMP for monitoring, detect network errors, turn ports on/off and lots of more stuff..

Thanks Hellbeach

One useful feature of managed switches (especially in a business arena) is the abilty to set port speeds.

Normally a "dumb" switch has it's ports set to auto negotiate. For most people this is fine. However, in business a lot of people set the devices to fixed speeds e.g 100/Full duplex.

If you connect such a device to a Auto Neg device, you will end up with a mismatch. The reason is if one end is Auto Neg, so must the other end be. If not you end up with poor performance, as they reduce to a common denomiator. This can be seen below; we'll asume the device can run at 100mbs / Full duplex and is working well.

Dev A - Auto
Dev B - Auto
Speed = 100mbs / Full Duplex

Dev A - 100/Full Fixed
Dev B - 100/Full Fixed
Speed - 100/Full Duplex

Dev A - Auto
Dev B - 100/Full fixed
Speed = 100 / Half Duplex

If a device runs a half duplex, this means it can only communicate in 1 direction at a time. This can result in a horrendous slowdown, often much worse than the 50% reduction you may expect, especially under load.

So as a rule, if using dumb (unmanaged) switches, always set your devices to AutoNegotiate.

Stu..

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

... unless you meant the difference between a switch and a hub.

A HUB will broadcast all the packets to all the ports.

A SWITCH will figure out "Oh, this packet that's coming in on port 5 is going to the computer on port 7, so I'll send it straight there".



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

Just wanted to thank Stu for that post, thats great info. We learned that on the hard way!

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein

Another thing with managed switches, if there's a problem on the network you can often determine which port and in turn which computer is causing it. Also, it's often possible to monitor network usage (specifically as it relates to that switch) with them using additional software to get at the information.