[K12OSN] hub vs. switch at eth0

[John Baillie]

rmcdaniel at indata.us wrote:

> You can't ignore the fact that they are very low end products.  I have 
> been a systems engineer for 15 years and have sold/supported 
> everything from very high end Cisco equipment to stuff like the Amer 
> products.  It is what it is, a very inexpensive networking device.  
> You can't expect them to be the same quality as the higher-end 
> products.  I have seen many problems with them, but hey for the money 
> throw in another one.  When you start comparing switching fabrics and 
> different switching protocols, there are many differences in the 
> expensive stuff compared to the low end products.
>  
> I am sure that the NIC is not very robust either.  But it does work 
> with the hub, not the switch.
>  
> You can't expect the same performance from a Yugo that you can from a 
> Ferrari.
>
> Ronald R. McDaniel
> Conecuh County Schools
> (251) 578-7073 x26
> (251) 230-0658 cell
> rmcdaniel at indata.us <mailto:rmcdaniel at indata.us>
>

You bring up something I have been wondering about for a while Ronald.
We too have been using Amer products for 3+ years without a hitch. 
Before purchasing I searched the net and news groups for negative 
comments and could not find much one way or the other which led me to 
wonder
A. No one has any complaints
B. No one is using the stuff

Although these are all managed switches with all sorts of features, 
VLANs, spanning tree algorithm, port aggregation and more, I have never 
had an occasion to use them.

With that said, what kind of performance improvement could I expect to 
see if I compared a more expensive set of switches, only used in its 
most basic form? We would have to be comparing switches with same 
technology, for instance layer 3 to layer 3. I'm not bating you, I am 
honestly curious. I have not had the opportunity to work with high end 
switches and routers.

John