SG Broadband Community

Can too many hubs (5) cause damage to ports on a hub or cause intermittent faults to ports on a hub. There are approx 70 pc in total on the network. The computers are mainly used for innternet access and Email with exchange server.

I have never heard of any damage, but the rule of thumb is don't stack more than 3 hubs. It cause very high latency. you have 70 comps connected through hubs? That was a very poort design. You should have used a router to a switch/switches. That way there is so much traffic on the network.

Linsky makes hubs witch devide the bandworth up like switches, They are mainly used for offices. A 5 port router with a built in switch. Would proubly be the best way to go. You would gey better performance. Or they do make routers that cann have more then one switch hooked to them. If you our running That many computers go to a good offices supplie store. They have very nice routers and hubs built for offices . That will give you better perforamce useing that many computers.

5 hubs in a row will not cause damage but will cause excessive round trip delay with collisions (thus delay) as a consequence.
In short don't daisychain >4 10Base-T hubs (stacking is a totally different technique); don't daisychain >2 100Base-T hubs.
Make a star-configuration of your network. Use switch as a collapsed backbone for your hubs. Meaning, uplink all hubs to the switch.
Good Luck
JR

Exchange server can get touchy with latency....and having 5 hubs, even if they are 500 dollar 3COM Super Stacker Hubs, is above the general rule of thumb of not having more than 3 hubs like Oakfan correctly mentioned. If your network starts to grow past 3 hubs, it's best to have the fourth device be a good quality switch (not a cheesy one like one of those very basic ones that comes in home broadband routers or some other sub hundred dollar switch, spend some cash on a REAL switch, especially if your network is over 30 - 40 computers).

Use your new switch as the center of your star topology network....have the server (s) plugged into the switch...then uplink each existing hub into your switch, don't daisy chain them into each other, rather each one plugged directly into the switch via uplink port on the hub, or via a crossover cable. This way, each hub becomes segmented...so performance improvement there. The server is very busy...so improvement having that in the switch. Also any internet connection like a router or gateway device...plug that into the switch. And other power users of any networked apps you run....like SQL apps or something demanding run from a server...I generally plug them into the switch also. Remaining "typical" users you can leave in the hubs.