Jefro, where did you get that switch info? It's total bunk. That may have had some small level of truth years ago when switches were in their early stage of development, but not any longer. I pointed the exact same thing to jeffro in a previous post of his where he made the same claim about most "Almost all home routers and switches are really hubs.". I even gave him links to a couple different brands of highspeed internet routers where the specs said "switch". He never replied. I just want to point out that, if they were indeed hub based and not switches, then the companies (in that case Linksys and DLink) would be open for a false advertising lawsuit that I'm sure their teams of lawyers wouldn't allow to happen. Since both Fish and Hero replied I wasn't going to but I hate misinformation. I have a Cisco 2900 XL 24 port 100 Mbps switch at home that I use in conjunction with my DLink DI 604 'router' to provide connectivity to all my PC's. It's a managed 'enterprise' level switch. (we're phasing out the Cisco and 3Com equipment in favor of the Nortel switches so we have quite a few extras and my boss was kind enough to let me take one home to play with) Right now in my office I have a Cisco 2900 XL, 2950, 3500 XL, 3com 4400, Baystack 5510, 5520 as well as a Cisco 2600 and 2800 routers. I'm a network technician by trade and work with all the aforementioned managed equipment extensively. We do have some older enterprise level 3Com switches still in production that aren't managed and are being phased out this year. They are however, still switches, and also still enterprise level switches. The major difference between an 'enterprise' level switch and non-enterprise is scale. An 8 port switch does not constitute 'enterprise' level whereas high density 24 - 48 port do. But even an 8 or 5 or 4 port switch is still a switch. Nuff said..............

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I was wondering if I was the only one who had noticed Jefro's posts as being problematic. He's hinted that he is cisco certified on a post discussing spanning tree. Yet " The single wire can transport data from all the systems if you have two nic adapter in one computer." Does anyone get that? What does a single wire have to do with two nics? Maybe he was hinting at using ICS but a lot of his posts have nonsense in them like this. Question I have is are we dealing with a newbie or a troll? Give a person a fish, they eat for a day. Suggest they internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.

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Question I have is are we dealing with a newbie or a troll? I'd say both.

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You all claim to say so but I say prove it. Use ethereal on your so called switch and report back. You can put more than one IP on an adapter.

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I already have. You're wrong.

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"Cisco 2900 XL" Is a true switch. It is unlikely that many other home users would have such a switch. I couldn't care less what the "Web Site" claims. Prove it to yourself on your home/soho switch and report back that it in fact is a true switch as the Cisco 2900 is. I would perfer that you private message me if you have any more replies so as to not confuse the original poster. Don't be suprised if I don't delete them though.

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"I would perfer that you private message me if you have any more replies so as to not confuse the original poster." Just did on a netgear SOHO router. It is indeed a switch. I'm posting here because you're confusing the original poster. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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Jefro the poster went off to buy 2 75ft patch cords. If a soho router contained a hub it couldn't do mac filtering, of which all soho routers I have dealt with do. I don't think you are trying to be a troll. My impression is you are 20 something with perhaps a cisco cert under your belt. Its a beginning but not the end. My impression is you don't have the time in yet for the aquired knowledge to gel yet. Hence this discussion about a "true" switch. If you want to be helpful, and I have to believe that is why you are here, take some time to think about what you are writing. For example: "It can turn off and turn on the ports for the traffic as needed. They improve the bandwidth because of that.." is complete nonsense. Bandwidth is gained because a switch doesn't have a single broadcast domain like a hub does. Another example: "Don't be suprised if I don't delete them though" Reworded would be "no surprise if I don't delete them". I would bet you meant to say "don't be surprised if I delete them [and not respond]" Clarity of thought leads to clarity of posting. I am all for people being helpful. But spouting nonsense doesn't help anyone. Give a person a fish, they eat for a day. Suggest they internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.

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Jefro, If you believe you can prove what you say, please post your ethereal scan.

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"It can turn off and turn on the ports for the traffic as needed. They improve the bandwidth because of that.." He's actually right about that under certain conditions with the right switches and configurations, but that's besides the point of what defines a switch. He seems to believe that you must pay over $100 for a switch for it to be a "true switch". Depends on how he defines a "true switch", but the reality is a switch even defined by Cisco is a device with memory containing a table of MAC addresses stored, and should traffic go to a MAC address in memory, traffic only goes to that port. There IS a performance difference between various switches, but that is irrelevant concerning the definition of a switch. I even have a very very generic 8 port switch sitting here that I paid a grand total of $5 after rebate. Guess what? It's a switch! :-) Is it a good one? Suits my purposes fine, but I wouldn't use it on an enterprise level network for sure. Still a switch though. A Cisco (or any other brand name) label doesn't make a switch fundamentally a switch. "If a soho router contained a hub it couldn't do mac filtering..." Not entirely true. SOHO routers are truly multifunctional devices, similar to a printer/fax/scanner. They could easily have a hub instead of a switch if need be, but who wants a hub these days, and it's not like it costs anything to put a basic switch in there instead of a hub. Some SOHO routers can't do MAC address filtering, or if they do, sometimes it's only in the wireless access point section that it can be done, suggesting that again, the functions of the device are actually wholly separated by the components inside or through the underlying software. The true test would be as Jefro suggested, to which he is dead wrong. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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"If you believe you can prove what you say, please post your ethereal scan." In order to prove this, he must prove actually that ALL traffic transmitted to or from the LAN ports on the device goes to all ports. If some doesn't, it's a switch. If Jefro means it's not a *good* switch, that's debatable, and he's entitled to his opinion on that. Otherwise, he's 100% wrong. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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Tested my DLink DI 604, no surprise, it's a switch based device. The only reason I have a 2900 XL at home is because we have about 10 spares at work and this one has 5 ports on it that don't work. Chances are, I'll get to keep it for a minimal fee (can't charge much for broken equipment right). Not everybody works as a network technician and therefore has access to this type of equipment to use at home. Trust me, I'd rather have a 1U 2950, they're a lot quieter. But that's all beside the point of whether a small switch or SOHO router is actually a switch or hub. If we didn't have the spares, I'd have been forced to buy a smaller 8 port switch when the number of PC's in my house exceeded the 4 ports on my router. We keep a bunch of those around at work too in case we need to temporarily increase the number of available connections in one room. Some are 10/100, the rest are 1 GB. All of those are DLink. Just out of curiosity, I tested two yesterday, a new 1 GB and a 10/100 that's about a year old. Guess what, both are switches. I couldn't care less what the "Web Site" claims. Prove it to yourself on your home/soho switch and report back that it in fact is a true switch as the Cisco 2900 is. Well, I'm sure there are a lot of people who do care what the website says. Imagine someone like me buying a device advertised as a switch only to discover it's a hub. Yep, I'd call a lawyer, a false adverstising suit like that would mean some easy $$$ for me and the lawyer I hired. Companies know this, too many other types of businesses have tried to pull a fast one in the past and paid the price. That's one of the reasons there are laws about companies misrepresenting themselves and their products. Don't believe me, call a lawyer and ask. I would perfer that you private message me if you have any more replies so as to not confuse the original poster. Don't be suprised if I don't delete them though. Not likely. Private messages don't help other people learn things. I'm sure one or two people at the very least were taking what you have been saying as being true....when it's not. This string alone should help them to realize you're standing alone out in left field and completely wrong with your assessment of SOHO routers and other small scale switches. Simply put, I'm not trying to insult you. I'm not trying to show off what I know either. I just don't want the people that come in here and read posts that will leave them misinformed.

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Tell me how any of this has helped the original poster. If you wish to help the person then you all could have done that with much less fanfair. As for tests, I'd use ethereal on linux as the windows isn't supported for most nic's in this test. I know I would use the 2003 servers network monitor as only the full version would work for this test (I'm sure you guys read that in the MSCSE/MSCSA books). I would also flood traffic across two or more ports and see if backbone supported any traffic. Tell me now how your tests report. If your soho does then fine. I still say most will not pass either of those two tests.

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"know I would use" Should read would not use

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"Tell me how any of this has helped the original poster." Tell us how your inaccurate post helped him first. "As for tests, I'd use ethereal on linux as the windows isn't supported for most nic's in this test." Why? "I would also flood traffic across two or more ports and see if backbone supported any traffic." You're making an argument pertaining to how good the switch is, not whether or not it's a true switch. It's still a switch. He's talking about running a 3-4 node network. Absolutely no reason a high end switch is necessary here. "Milk was a bad choice!"

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Tell me how any of this has helped the original poster. Hopefully, we're educating the user by dispelling the false info that you're giving. We also hoped that you would be educated as well, but you refuse to learn from the more experienced and knowledgeable people. I'd use ethereal on Linux as the windows isn't supported for most nic's in this test. Another false statement. I've used ethereal on lots of Windows machines with a variety of nics (on board, ISA, and PCI) and have never had a problem with ethereal on Windows and I'm sure the other experienced people in this thread would attest to the same. Of course, I make sure that I have the proper Windows drivers for the nic's, but it sounds like you don't. ...(I'm sure you guys read that in the MSCSE/MSCSA books) Did you mean MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer)? A person that was certified would have known that, so I must assume that you're not MCSE certified. MSCSE stands for “Master of Science in Control Systems Engineering”. If we believed everything in those Microsoft certification books, as M$ would hope we would, then we would also have to believe that M$ is the best OS on the market and should be the only one. You still haven't provided 1 shred of evidence that supports your claims.

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"I've used ethereal on lots of Windows machines with a variety of nics (on board, ISA, and PCI) and have never had a problem with ethereal on Windows and I'm sure the other experienced people in this thread would attest to the same." True that! The whole MCSE thing he mentioned sounded condescending to me. I in fact am an MCSE and MCSA. I also know networking in general. Judging from the pro Cisco lingo above, this guy sounds like he's a CCNA or trying to be one, and he also likes to dog Windows guys because he thinks he's better than they are, or that they don't know TCP/IP. This isn't the NT4 MCSE days anymore, and your certs don't define what you know. I just ignore it, and when the time comes, burninate them with my knowledge when it counts. In this case, he didn't know truly what defines a switch, and is now attempting confuse the issue and cover his tracks, OR to him nothing is a true switch but a Cisco switch, which is equally ignorant. "Milk was a bad choice!"

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I've used ethereal on lots of Windows machines with a variety of nics (on board, ISA, and PCI) and have never had a problem with ethereal on Windows and I'm sure the other experienced people in this thread would attest to the same Same for me. Used it on multiple versions of windows with more different NIC's than I care to think about. Never had a problem. In this case, he didn't know truly what defines a switch, and is now attempting confuse the issue and cover his tracks, OR to him nothing is a true switch but a Cisco switch, which is equally ignorant Agreed on all counts. You still haven't provided 1 shred of evidence that supports your claims. LOL - I keep waiting for some too, but I'm not seeing it either. That pretty much speaks for itself doesn't it. Cert's only show a minimum level of knowledge in a certain area. I too have my MSCE (2000) as well as two CompTIA cert's and numerous vendor certs. It all counts toward something, but not as much as actual real-life experience. Cisco cert's themselves are overpriced and overrated. I've had many long talks with Cisco certified technicians and they've all agreed on one thing.....most of what you learn following a Cisco cert track is never used in industry. Several were quite surprised that I had no cert's due to my level of knowledge and told me, "You know all you need to know".

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If you all are trying to tell me you are getting the same specs for $30 as you would get for a $1000 enterprise switch then I guess I know how qualified everyone is.

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No, and I resent that you're even claiming that's what I'm saying. Stop trying to bend my words into what you want them to be. All I said was a SOHO router has a switch. No, it's not as good as a $1000 switch, but it IS a switch. And it IS good enough for many environments, specifically home and small business networks. Are you saying a 3 node network needs a $1000 enterprise level switch?! I guess I know how qualified you are! See? Not nice when someone does it to you, is it? Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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LOL No, none of us are saying that they have the same specs, that's an entirely different issue. The fact that you now raise this question shows 2 things; a) you have no clue to what you're talking about, and b) you're trying to skirt around the misinformation that you spew out. Let's get back to the main issue. You claim that soho routers and inexpensive switches are not real switches but merely hubs. The rest of us know that you are wrong, but we're waiting for you to provide your evidence. Are you able to provide such evidence, or do you just plan on making an assortment absurd claims to hide the fact that you know that you're wrong?

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