[plug] OT: 10/100 hubs

[Nick Bannon]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2001 at 11:25:40PM +0800, Bernard Blackham wrote:
> Hmmm, I have a FS108 switch with Netgear's tulip FA310TX cards in almost
> every machine (two linux, two windows) , yet the highest throughput I
> usually get is around 7MB/s at the best of times (measured with tcpblast).
> Does this sound about right for a 100 mbps network?

Adequate, I guess, but it certainly can get higher than that with an
appropriate setup.

> Also the switch runs pretty awfully hot, even with decent ventilation.
[...]

<nod> We have several FS108's at work and they're pretty warm. They
seem to work fine, though and the heat hasn't been enough to cause
problems.

Generally - yes there's a very wide variety of link-level Ethernet
equipment. There certainly have been old 10/100 hubs for example that
could not handle a mix of equipment - 100Mbps machines would talk fine
to each other, 10Mbps machines would talk fine to each other, but it
couldn't "convert" speeds. (as one might expect from a simple hub)
Modern 10/100 hubs, eg the D-Links, have an internal bridge between the
10Mbps devices and the 100Mbps devices, so they can talk to each other,
similar to what Matt mentioned.

In the context of Ethernet, "switches" are indeed the same as "switched
hubs" - they're still hubs of sorts.

Anyway, basic, unmanaged, 10/100 switches have become so cheap that
it's hard to justify getting anything less. Six months ago, my
housemate bought a $165 8 port SVEC-brand switch which has worked
perfectly well, though we haven't really pushed it to its limits.

Nick.

-- 
  Nick Bannon  | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick at it.net.au | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal