Are there any differences in using a hub or a switch to network our computers? Or are those just two names for the same piece of equipment .

Thanks

A switch is smart vs a hub which is just a connecting point. If you have internet sharing in mind a router should be included in your equipment mix as well.

A hub is dumb piece of equipment. It takes data in at one port and spews it out to all the others with no consideration as to where it came from of where is going to. Plus that only work at 10 Mps Half Duplex.

A switch on the other hand looks as the data as it comes in and only sends it out the port that its destination is connected to, buffering data if required thus reducing collisions. A collision is when two computers try to send data over the network at the same time. They work at 100Mbs full duplex.

So get a switch. The price difference is negligible. If you have Internet sharing in mind a router is essential unless you intend to use Internet Connection Sharing via software which is unreliable at best. Most routers for home use have a four port switch built in.

You cannot share an Internet connection with a switch or a hub.

Stuart

Is there any situation where a hub is preferrable/required...or is a hub just older pre-switch technology which is still hanging around (kinda like ISA drive adapter cards)?

Not really. There was a time when switches, being more complex, were considerably more expensive than hubs. Therefor a hub were used for economical reasons. They both do pretty much the same job but a hub is simpler and therefore cheaper.

These days there is not a lot to chose between the two so switches tend to be more used and the more they are used the cheaper they become relative to hubs.

Stuart

>> Plus that [hub] only work at 10 Mps Half Duplex.

A slight error. Hubs can work at 10MBps, 100MBps, and 1000MBps. For example, Cisco Catalyst WSG5483 is a 1000 MBps - 1000 Base TX - Wireless Gigabit Ethernet HUB

One valid use of a hub is if you want to monitor traffic on a link. You can put a hub between a modem and a router, connect a second system to the hub and use packet trace software to monitor the flow between the modem and router. You can also do this to monitor packets to/from a specific system. Not something the normal user would every be doing, but a network administrator or tech might do trying to track down a problem.

If there's only one client to the hub it works a bit faster than a switch in the same configuration. You might use one as a "repeater" station to extend the distance a packet can travel in a network. If you have a client 400m from the server, put a hub between them @200m to refresh the packets, that sort of thing.

The Cisco Catalyst WS G5483 appears to be a gbic module not a hub.
http://www.insight.ca/apps/productpresentation/index.php?product_id=CIS262619
http://www.critechsystems.com/WS-G5483/

Thank you all for your input.
Very informative and much appreciated.