I recently stepped into a position of I/T Manager and in doing so came across questions I dont have the answers to. We had a T1 installed about 8 months ago. The gentleman who did the installation wired the office together with 3com 3C16441A Superstacker 3 hubs. There's approximatly 6 spread throughout the office that 60 people are using (all with various O/S's from 98se to XP pro). My question is this, we have moved to the T1 and everyone is happy because we were using the old dial-up connections, so it appears to be light years ahead of where we were. Would it be more beneficial to replace the hubs with switches or keep things the way they are currently. If it would be better to switch to switches is it as simple as just replacing the hubs with switches? Thanks in advance

Hi Jason. Yes change them out as your company can afford it. For info on your hubs go here http://computers-networks-routers.com/hubs/3com/3com_3c16441a_hub.htm From what I read the present hubs are maxed to 10mbps. Somewhere on this site (do a search on hubs vs switch) a full explanation of the two is given. For 60 computers a definite switch to "switches" is called for. George

http://www.computers-networks-routers.com/hubs/3com/3com_3c16441a_hub.htm The hub runs at 10Mbps. If your network seems to be running slow I would recomend uprading to 10/100Mbps switchs. And making sure all PC's have 100Mbps network cards. You may want to upgrade slow depeniding on cost/month that is in your budget. Check to make sure you have CAT5 cableing, and make sure they didnt use 2 of the 8 wires for the phone system. (you can do that on a 10Mbps network)If they did you may want to stop there till you have the budget to pull more cableing and rewire everything. Then... If all PC's have 10Mbps cards try to work it in the budget to get the the 10/100 NICs first and spend a few nights installing them in each PC. That will make the change of the 10Mbps hub to the 10/100 switch very easy. (you may even want to work it out and put in a proposed budget to your company on a per year amount for network upgrades.)

Note for above... Remember when working up a budget add in for the ??? man hours if you and your crew are not salery. Also add in a few K/year for the posabillity of having to call in another source for help. You never know when disaster will strick and you have to call in the big guns because you need it to work NOW or its your job and dont have the time to do it/dont know how to do it. New to Admin? Make sure you have good back ups. Make sure at least 1 set of back ups are off site at all times. (let the Prez feel like he is doing his job. Hand him a set of tapes once a week and tell him thats a copy of everything on the server. Either he takes it home till you hand him a new set or you do.) If he fights with you just ask him "What happens to our data that we need if something bad like a fire would ever happen?" If your the IT guy its your head on the block when "that file" cant be found.

Definitly use switchs. A 10 Mb hub divides the bandwidth through each computer on the hub, but a 10 Mb switch gives every computer 10 Mb per computer. Try to get 100 Mb switchs for maximum performance.

THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP!!!!! I'll begin working on that today.