Linksys EZXS55W, EZXS88W manual Switches versus Hubs

Instant EtherFast ® Series

Switches versus Hubs

Your EtherFast 10/100 Switch boosts your network performance several times over, conserving your time, money and resources. The scalability of your Switch, its full duplex data transfer and dedicated bandwidth all contribute to maximizing efficiency in your Fast Ethernet network.

Your EtherFast 10/100 Switch’s autosensing feature gives you a key advan- tage over other forms of networking by upgrading speed-critical network seg- ments to 100mbps while allowing existing 10BaseT networks to operate with the Switch. Allowing 10BaseT and 100BaseTX hardware speeds to run alongside each other eliminates the need to purchase new hardware, rewire and reconfigure an entire site all at once. This scalability factor ensures that Fast Ethernet will not fall obsolete to upgrades in speed standards and main- tains use of all your old equipment until you decide to buy speedier replace- ments. Otherwise, throwing away all your older, slower equipment in an old- fashioned “forklift upgrade” is the only other alternative.

Scalability allows you to budget for your networking needs over time. Now networks can custom-run fast and slow segments at the same time for different users and departments. Publishing, R&D, and accounting depart- ments can enjoy 100mbps transfer, while other corporate segments conserve bandwidth by operating at slower, more economical 10mbps speeds.

Switches also feature full duplex data transfer, meaning that all computers on the switch can “talk” to the switch at the same time. Plus, switches can send and receive data simultaneously to all connections, whereas a hub can- not. A hub simply works with one computer at a time and only sends or receives data, since it cannot handle two way communication.

In addition to full duplex transfer, your 10/100 Switch surges your network with dedicated bandwidth to each node, devoting 100mbps to every device and multiplying your bandwidth for each added node. For instance, if you connect five computers to your EtherFast 10/100 Switch, then each computer will get a dedicated bandwidth of 100Mbps at full duplex transfer. If you run 5 computers from a 100mbps hub, then each computer would only share a part of the 100mbps bandwidth.

EtherFast 10/100 Autosensing Switches

A network without a switch is called a shared network because every node on the network competes for a fraction of the total bandwidth. In a shared network, data packets are randomly broadcasted to all stations until they discover their intended destination. Consequently, considerable time and bandwidth is wasted on data packets swimming along network lines before they find their correct address. A switch, on the other hand, features a store- and-forward function which retains the address for each data packet and shoots them straight to the correct destination.

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