>I am planning on building an ethernet netowrk at home. What do I need >to do it (other than NICs and cable, of course)? What is the >difference between a hub and switch? Any recommended brands/models? >Do I really need a hub/switch or can I use an old box with a lot of >NICs instead? Is there anywhere I can RTFM all of this?
Old Box with lots of NIC's will cost more than a hub and won't be reliable. to put it very simply a hub has shared bandwidth while a switch has unshared. So if i'm transferring at 100Mbps between 2 machines across a hub then to open similar connection between another 2 machines will reduce the trasfer rate to 50mbps for all concerned. whereas a switch will let all connections through it operate at full speed. unless you are looking at serious data storage or multimedia manipulation a cheap taiwanese 8port 10Mbps hub will be a reliable and cheap way to go. slightly upmarket I use netgear hubs and swtiches because they have nice auto-sensing and configuration.
