I know this much about routers and hubs. routers have (most of the time) a built in fire wall and hubs do not. Hubs are said to be "dumb" routers can be set in a variety of ways. Where can I find a guide that actually explains the differences between the two in real detail? I have scoured practicallynetworked.com (great site, but they totally miss this issue) as well as looking at 15 other sites for help.

Hm... hubs are not dumb routers.. hubs are in fact 'multiple repeaters' which connects PCs together , like a switch but a switch is much more intelligent (it could do VLans, fast switching, fast forwarding ... ETC). for routers they are mainly used to connect networks together... therefore they have firewall or the right term is ACL (access control list) go find info on Cisco

you are comparing apples to oranges here. Routers and Hubs are not really even close to the same thing. Matter of fact these so called "routers" that are used for ICS are not even real routers if you want to know the truth. A switch is closer to a hub than a router and the difference is that a switch sends traffic directly to the intended recipient rather than everyone until it finds the right place thus creating less traffic and collisions. Ass for the firewall question, true, most of these little ICS toy routers have a firewall built in but, you can create a firewall (even better than those on the routers) with a hub and 2 NICS in one of the machines if you know how to configure a PC with IP correctly.

Routers and hubs are very much different. The only thing close to a hub that u might be confusing with a router is a switch. A hub, is a dumb switch...now that sounds more correct. A hub is basically a repeater, as stated earlier. It multiplies and repeats the signal to all the connected nodes (computers). A switch is much smarter than a hub, in a nutshell the switch can recognize which node the signal is supposed to reach and only sends the signal by that route...hence not crowding the traffic on all the other nodes. but what does all of this mean to you? if you're planning on having lan parties...use either a hub or switch, go with the switch for large traffic and if its crowded and go with the hub if you're just plain ol' poor. hmm your lack of knowledge doesn't suggest any other use for this type of hardware, so leave the routers alone ^_^

What these guys have all missed out is that a router works on a completely different network "level" to switches and hubs. Switches and Hubs both work on the "Datalink" level, for example, the MAC addresse of your NIC is what counts here. Routers work on the next level up, "Network" for example, IP. (Above this is "Transplant," for example TCP) A more realistic difference is that equipment that is not on the same network settings cannot communicate through a switch of a hub, instead a router has to be used. A good sites to try are: www.bell-labs.com / www.lucent.com www.cisco.com Hope this helps Joni

Joni, if he didnt know the different I certainly wasn't going to attempt to convey what a layer three NW is. We know what it si...

Was your question answered??? A hub, as I think you know, is used to attach multiple ethernet based devices on a shared communication path. Consequently, only one machine can "talk" at a time and all others have to wait until the party-line is free. A switch allows multiple paths to be used at one time. For example, PC-A and PC-B can be transmitting data while PC-C and PC-D are transmitting data. Switches and hubs look similiar, but a switch has much more inteligence. (A 10/100 hub is, in fact, a hub with a two-port switch built in. This allows PCs operating at 10Mbits to communication with other PCs operating at 100Mbits. Finally, a router is a device to connect two dissimiliar networks. In a pure sense, a router would be used to connect two networks of the same type (say, Ethernet) but with different addressing schemes. For instance, you might have a network in your office that communicates via TCP/IP to the internet. A router would connect your TCP/IP network with your ISP's TCP/IP network which is then connected to their ISP's TCP/IP network through yet another router(s). Essentially, a router does what it's name implies... it routes by remembering how to get from one network to another. Often a router will only have two ports. One for the client network and one for the ISP's network. There is yet another beastie called a Bridge. A bridge connects two networks of different type, for instance an Ethernet network to a TokenRing Network (or an Apletalk Network, etc.) These networks are different in very physical ways, different wire, different electrical signalling, and so on. These days bridging functionality is often incorporated into what we call routers for simplicity. If you are wondering what the references in the above responses are to "layers", search for "OSI MODEL". This model describes the nirvana of networking in which a network is built upon 7 discrete layers. Each layer can talk to the layer above and below itself and each layer has very specific tasks. A router is a layer 3 device, a bridge is a layer 2 device and a hub is a layer 1 device.