Hub Hardware opinions please

[putasolutions]

Sourdaisy and Daemon, please forgive me if you feel I have posted this in the wrong forum, but I felt that the networking community would be more likely to give me an opinion than the General Hardware forum

A colleague has offered me a redundant Baystack 101 hub w/12 RJ45 at a considerable reduction in price. At present, I have 2 standalone PCs and 2 networked putas (using a crossover cable) at home. I really would like to have the other two on the network, but was concerned that I might be going for overkill going with the 101. Anybody have any reservations, or should I go for it?

Thanks in advance, and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most

[This message has been edited by putasolutions (edited 11-22-2001).]

[This message has been edited by putasolutions (edited 11-22-2001).]

[ceh383]

It looks like a 10baseT hub, for 4 machines it would work fine. For my money I'd go for a 10/100 hub myself, I like the extra speed, it's great for transfering larger files from one machine to another.

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My corner of the round world

[Sarrkazztic]

if you are thinking about cable or dsl in the future skip the hub and go straight for the linksys befsr41 (4port) or befsr81 (8port) router/switch...this has built in 10/100 switch that will handle your network throughput as well as a future broadband connection

[DrMDJ]

That hub has a few more network management capabilities than your basic "home" hub/switch, but it's not clear you need that. It's also only a 10base-T hub, limiting you to 10mbit transfers (don't know what network cards you have) and not providing the non-shared bandwidth of a switch. For basic home networking a 5 (or more if you need it) port autosensing 10/100 switch might serve you better. And, as Sarrkazztic said, if you have plans to share a cable/dsl connection, then you want to go the combo router/switch route.

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[This message has been edited by DrMDJ (edited 11-23-2001).]

[putasolutions]

Many thanks to everyone for their input and advice.

I shall decline the offer and look in the 10/100Mbs direction as you all suggested .


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Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most