Allied Telesis SwitchBlade AT SB4211A - switch

Advantages: Performace at an excellent price
Disadvantages: 4 ports may not be enough

...No, no, not like your Switch card or Visa card... You're in the Networking section now :-) Although I'm sure if you're reading this you have SOME idea about networking, I will explain first the basic difference between a switch and a hub (Network experts please forgive the following paragraphs) >>> A hub will usually work at an elementary level, making a verbatim copy of all data it receives on each of its ports to all of its other ports. As you can imagine, for a 10 port hub, this means that 80% of all its output is completely redundant (reaches a destination that simply ignores it) >>> A switch is a LITTLE more intelligent. A switch will check the unique "MAC" address that the data is destined for, and assuming it has seen the machine that that MAC address belongs to connected to one of its ports, it will pass on received data... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to use, easy to install
Disadvantages: closeness of the ports.

...Netgear are well known for their networking equipment and it is for this reason I want to tell you about a great piece of kit. The 24 port switch. 24 ports of networking capability.... But what does that all mean??? Ok, let me tell you about what a network is. Even the internet is just one big network. it is simply just a collection of computers that are connected together and can communicate. Simple! But, how do you connect them together? Its not like they shake hands and have a chat is it? Well in a way, that is what they are doing but using some extra hardware to do this. To put a computer on a network, it needs a Network interface card or NIC. This plugs into your computer's motherboard. Its basically similar to installing a graphics card or sound card. You then need to connect the computer via the NIC card to... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to set up, configure and use
Disadvantages: None

...We currently run an 80 user network in our office. While the main traffic of our network is handled by 6, 24 port rack mounted switches, my little IT office has 7 PCs in it with not enough ports on the wall to connect them up. this poses a problem. To connect to our network, you need a network connection on the Wall. There are 4 connections in our office and 7 machines. Obviously 7 into 4 does not go so a solution was needed. The answer? A small desktop based switch that would allow us to connect up to 16 computers to one Network connection on the wall. The Product? Well we use Netgear equipment in our office because you know with Netgear, you are buying quality at an affordable price. So we opted for the FS116 Desktop Switch. The size of it? Well its about an inch high and about a foot long. It is about 6 inches from... Read review

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