[plug] OT: 10/100 hubs

[Michael Hunt]

> On 10 Apr 2001 15:36:04 +0800, Russell Steicke wrote:
> > While thinking about buying hardware for a home network, the following
> > question came up: Do all 10/100 hubs do speed translation between a
> > device on one port at 10 Mbit and a device on another port at 100 Mbit,
> > or do some of them only handle all 10 Mbit devices or all 100 Mbit
> > devices? Is this sort of translation a standard feature of 10/100 hubs,
> > or something one needs to look for?
> >
>
> you can't go past the netgears. Got a Netgear DS108 running here which
> is autosensing 10/100 per port, got three systems running at 100 and the
> other 5 at 10 works great. and at most places the prices is pretty
> reasonable.
>
> Adam

I seem to remember in a conversation with my boss some time ago that he told
me that the Netgears had two buses in them that were connected via a bridge.
This was done in order to get around the problem of dropping the network
speed down when you connect a slower device. Basically the port auto senses
your connection. places you on the bus appropriate to your speed and then
bridges your connection to the other bus when you need to speak to it.

The one point that he couldn't answer me on is weather all 10/100 hubs are
designed like this or just some manufacturers/models. This took place nearly
two years ago so I don't know weather it is now a defacto standard. It was
interesting to hear him speak against the advice of a technical article
written in some computer mag (can't remember which one know - may have been
APC). He did also manage to show me some literature from Netgear that proved
that they were doing it as he suggested they were.

So the result for me is that I recommend you find out how the bus is set-up
before buying a hub or follow one of three other possible solutions instead

1. Buy a switch because your a speed maniac and this is going to be a faster
network anyway.
2. Buy all 100Mb cards and then none of the above matters.
3. Save yourself some money, don't network the machines together, and go on
a holiday instead.

Michael Hunt

My thermometer just feel of the wall because it is so hot here
Aussie baking in the African sun.