I've heard people say that Netgear isn't a great brand. Why is this? I've had a netgear LAN installed for about a week and so far everything works great. My setup:
Two Win98 PC's
Two Netgear 10/100 NIC's
2 25" RJ-45 (Think thats it) cables
Netgear Hub.
Also, what is a 'switch' and why is it better than a hub?
Thanks!
Cursim
Netgear - Some questions
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Slicer
I can tell you this much, I use a Netgear router for my DSL and don't have near the problems seen with the Linksys.
Netgear is a spin off of Nortel Networks, now the proud owner of Bay Networks. So i tend to have a little more confidence in their network stuff. I also have a 8 port Switching hub from Netgear that I keep as a back up if my Bay Networks switch goes down. As I said before, no problems or performance issues from either.
A switch allows you to segment network traffic. It is a little more indepth than that. Try reading here: http://www.networking.ibm.com/mse/mse0c01.html
Later
Slicer
Netgear is a spin off of Nortel Networks, now the proud owner of Bay Networks. So i tend to have a little more confidence in their network stuff. I also have a 8 port Switching hub from Netgear that I keep as a back up if my Bay Networks switch goes down. As I said before, no problems or performance issues from either.
A switch allows you to segment network traffic. It is a little more indepth than that. Try reading here: http://www.networking.ibm.com/mse/mse0c01.html
Later
Slicer
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Ikarus
Well the main difference between a switch and a hub are:
1) Hubs are just repeaters and they are a shared connection. So if you have an 8 Port 10BT hub you share the 10Mbit bandwidth with everyone on that hub. Also all transmissions are repeated to all ports on the hub causing unnecessary congestion and slower performance for bandwidth intensive applications like streaming video or file copying (games dont transmit use anywhere close to 10Mbits of data that much so even a ****ty hub will get you 20-50ms pings).
A true switch has dedicated bandwidth for each port, so if your connected at 100Mbps you do not share that bandwidth with anyone else and also switches have intelligent "routing" so when you broadcast it doesn't flood the other ports connecting other computers so there NIC's have to check whether or not all those broadcasts are addressed to them or not. A switch is overkill for most people or casual gamers. If you are hardcore or go to a lot of lan parties where you get into lots of games and theres lots of other people with hubs and whatnot a switch is great to have. If you just want the highest performance for filecopying and everything else, then a switch is the only way to go. But it wont substantially decrease your ping times for online gaming.
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Alladvantage - Make money surfin the web
http://www.alladvantage.com/home.asp?refid=fwp860
1) Hubs are just repeaters and they are a shared connection. So if you have an 8 Port 10BT hub you share the 10Mbit bandwidth with everyone on that hub. Also all transmissions are repeated to all ports on the hub causing unnecessary congestion and slower performance for bandwidth intensive applications like streaming video or file copying (games dont transmit use anywhere close to 10Mbits of data that much so even a ****ty hub will get you 20-50ms pings).
A true switch has dedicated bandwidth for each port, so if your connected at 100Mbps you do not share that bandwidth with anyone else and also switches have intelligent "routing" so when you broadcast it doesn't flood the other ports connecting other computers so there NIC's have to check whether or not all those broadcasts are addressed to them or not. A switch is overkill for most people or casual gamers. If you are hardcore or go to a lot of lan parties where you get into lots of games and theres lots of other people with hubs and whatnot a switch is great to have. If you just want the highest performance for filecopying and everything else, then a switch is the only way to go. But it wont substantially decrease your ping times for online gaming.
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Alladvantage - Make money surfin the web
http://www.alladvantage.com/home.asp?refid=fwp860
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DHM
Ikarus covered the Definition’s of a Switch verses a Hub very well now as far as the Netgear products are concerned I don’t know what people you have been listening To but if their saying Netgear is not a good product I would say either they have not one clue about what their talking about or their bias towards a certain product. I have used Netgear products almost exclusively for a couple of years now and because of the performance as well as the reliability, I personally would recommend them to anyone.Originally posted by Cursim:
I've heard people say that Netgear isn't a great brand. Why is this? I've had a netgear LAN installed for about a week and so far everything works great. My setup:
Two Win98 PC's
Two Netgear 10/100 NIC's
2 25" RJ-45 (Think thats it) cables
Netgear Hub.
Also, what is a 'switch' and why is it better than a hub?
Thanks!
Cursim
I also use Linksys products of witch
I have had problems in the past. I had one
minor problem once with a 10/100 switch
a led went bad. I emailed their Tech Support
Sunday evening got a response the next day
On Monday and received a new switch the very next day. For price and Performance and maybe most importantly warranty/support
you can’t touch Netgear.
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flung
I for one own several netgear products for my home and they have never failed on me. I'm also one of those users who tried the Linksys router and to be honest with you, I just couldn't take the little annoyances of that router. Traded it in for a netgear RT311 and I love it. One other aspect that i really like about netgear vs. something like Linksys.. the tech support. Email Netgear a question and they'll more than likely get back to you in a day or so! Just my 2 cents
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Richson
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Pro-Zak