Switches?

[touser]

hi all i am currently running 4 computers in a network, they are all connected to a hub which is then connected to my smoothwall (it is a firewall and it also shares my internet connection, just like a router) i was just wondering if it would be worth the money to go out and buy a 4-5 port switch to replace my hub? would it be any faster, on the network or on the internet? thanks in advance!

[Kendan]

If you are just using one to two computers at a time then you are fine with a hub. but if you are going to have all the computers access the network at the same time then a switch would help speed things up.

[wayshot]

It depends on how much traffic there is on the network. If the network is mostly used for Internet sharing or other low-speed services, a switch wouldn't be necessary. I've heard that using a switch for low traffic networks would actually slow things down a little bit since a switch will have to check each packet for data about the destination port. A hub just forward the packets to all ports without checking them.