Run out of ethnet ports on my router

securityguy

gjchester wrote: »

You can get switches and hubs,

Can you even buy hubs any more? A quick Amazon search doesn't show any, and when five ports of 100BaseT is six quid, it's hard to see why anyone would want one.

Sterlingtimes

Thank you all contributors. There is a huge amount of information here that I need to works through. So the responses have given me more information than I bargained for. Perhaps I can do some consolidation. Regards, Sterling.

Big_Graeme

securityguy wrote: »

Can you even buy hubs any more? A quick Amazon search doesn't show any, and when five ports of 100BaseT is six quid, it's hard to see why anyone would want one.

New maybe not but people may have one lying around or pick one up second hand cheap.

cookie365

Big_Graeme wrote: »

New maybe not but people may have one lying around or pick one up second hand cheap.

If you have a hub lying around, throw it away. If you can pick up a second hand hub cheap, pass up the opportunity.

Get an unmanaged switch.

Johnmcl7

securityguy wrote: »

Can you even buy hubs any more? A quick Amazon search doesn't show any, and when five ports of 100BaseT is six quid, it's hard to see why anyone would want one.

I've not seen a network hub for many years so while the advice against a hub is correct it's not really relevant any more and instead causing confusion.

John

Big_Graeme

cookie365 wrote: »

If you have a hub lying around, throw it away. If you can pick up a second hand hub cheap, pass up the opportunity.

Get an unmanaged switch.

Why throw away something that is perfectly serviceable and may do what I want without spending more money?

Nilrem

Big_Graeme wrote: »

Why throw away something that is perfectly serviceable and may do what I want without spending more money?

Hubs are massively outdated tech, and absolutely horrible for modern computer networking as they share the bandwidth and send traffic to all the ports regardless of what machines want the data.
IIRC they were showing their ages 15+ years ago and the only reason to get them back then as because the Switches cost a considerable amount more at the time (an 8port hub might have cost £50 or less, a very cheap 8 port switch £100+)

Switches direct the data specifically between the correct ports for the connected devices.

It didn't matter so much going back 10+ years (I bought my first 8port switch 15 years ago to replace a hub that was causing me issues), but as the amount of data being transferred over the average home network has increased it makes a big difference now.

To be honest I haven't even seen a hub second hand for a long time, so it's unlikely to even come up as an issue, but yeah, bin them (preferably in the "small appliances" container at the local tip WIEEE and all that).

These days you can buy 8 port gigabit switches such as this one from netgear, which I'm currently using for around £20, or 4 port 10/100 models from around a tenner.
Personally I'd go with an 8 port gigabit one given the minimal price difference and the performance increase (that and by the time you hook up a 4 port switch to a 4 port router you're down to 6 usable ports, thus have only gained 2 ports).

Big_Graeme

Nilrem wrote: »

Hubs are massively outdated tech, and absolutely horrible for modern computer networking as they share the bandwidth and send traffic to all the ports regardless of what machines want the data.

Thanks, exactly the info that has made me order a switch, cheer.