Network : hubby story

Some years ago, people were fond to have one PC in house. You accessed the internet via a dial-in modem connection. And for information exchange there was the good old FloppyNet. Then, times changed. A second PC entered many houses. A flat one, like it was treated by a steamroller. It had a cosy name: the laptop. As if it were a topping in your lap (whatever that might be)...
The second PC came with a bigger operating system. One with more need to access the internet and bigger files. Bigger than suitable for a dial-in connection. So computers needed some way to get connected. The Ethernet (as used by VAX mainframes) proved feasible for PC's. Now, both computers could share.
Then the broadband internet appeared and simple cross over cables for a network topology didn't suffice anymore. So the ethernet hub was invented. The hub relayed ethernet traffic like a postman does: it delivers packets, no matter the state of the packet. This caused some concern (in the case of damaged or lost packets) but all in all things improved.

Then more active network thingies emerged on the market. The hub was still fine, but too many packet errors brought down the entire network. Too much work for all stations, due to a few damaged ethernet packets. So the ethernet switch was invented.

An ethernet switch is an intelligent hub. It is a participating network device. An ethernet switch does the following:

• send requests over the LAN for attached devices
• remember the port on which a particular IP address is connected
• await incoming ethernet packets and
  • accept ethernet packets
  • inspect the received packets for the destination
  • consult the internal ARP tables for the destination address
  • based on the IP address of the recipient, the ethernet packet is relayed through one of its ports
  • if an ethernet packet contains errors
    • mark it as bad
    • send it back to the originator

A bonus of the ethernet switch is the fact that each single PC is only connected to a switch. No two PC's are connected to eachother. So if you take out the UTP cable of PC1, the other attached PC's won't be bothered with it. The switch isolates and connects all PC's from eachother. The ethernet switch is one of the major inventions of the decade. At least: the affordable ones. We won't be talking here about the 'real' switches made by Cisco, 3COM, HP and such. These cost as much as a small car.

The unmanaged switch

This topic is about 'normal' ethernet switches. With 'normal' I mean unmanaged switches. Ethernet switches that work as soon as they are unpacked and installed. And that cannot be tweaked or changed in any way. This is the most often used kind of switch. The workhorse of the majority of LANs.

Below are the switches I have experience with.

Longshine LCS-883R-SW800M+

To the right you see the 'previous' model of Longshine. This type of ethernet switch has been running here in my dungeons for over 6 years now and the first problem still needs to pop up. I must say I am very fond of these switches.

I even lent one to a neighbour (for close to a year) in whose network this one switch was the only unmanaged one. It performed there as well as it used to do here under very demanding conditions.

There isn't much to tell about this kind of switch. The pictures say it all. Still for the nerds among us:

• 8 UTP ports, each one fully equivalent to the other (i.e., no port is dedicated to be up- or downlink port)
• All ports are Auto MDX and Auto Nway
• Compatible with network speeds upto 100 Mbps
• Uses 'store and forward' technology
• Ample amount of LED's to signal
  • Link and Activity per port
  • Speed indication per port
    • Only 'LNK/ACT' on is '10 Mbps device'
    • 'LNK/ACT' and '100M' on is '100 Mbps device'
  • Flickering 'LNK/ACT' LED indicates data traffic
• Wall wart power supply with 6 feet of cable
• Runs on 12 Volts DC

Longshine FS6108

To the right you see the type of switch that is in use in most cases here in the dungeons. I have the 8 port version and the 5 port version.

Never spend money on the 5 port!

Here, as with the LCS-883R-SW800M+, there's not much to tell. These ultra reliable workhorses just do as they were told to. Never giving an inch. Still, for the nerds among us, some details:

• 8 (or 5) 100% equivalent ports
• Three (or 2) fixed ports with a 16:1 QoS priority setting
• All ports automatically detect the polarity of the UTP cable
• All ports automatically detect duplex mode
• The switch requires 5 Volts DC input
• It comes with a wall wart switch mode power supply with enough cable length
• All ports will work to at least 100 Mbps
• No problem if you connect multiple IP ranges on one switch
• The switch automatically interrogates attached devices
• Lots of space in the ARP tables
• Prepared for mounting vertically
• VERY reliable

The pictures were stolen from the site of the dutch importer (who likes to open up devices to see what's inside). Check his full detail photo album here: http://www.mijnalbum.nl/Album=ZOR3CS47 containing lots of high resolution pictures of the Longshine ethernet switches. Have fun!

As you can see in the bottom picture, there seems to be a switch mode power supply inside the Ethernet switch to convert the +5 Volts input to whatever is needs by the electronics. If you are a geek, consult the photo album....

SMC EZ Switch 5 Port

In the beginning I had this little switch (from the brand SMC) in several places in my house. After a year or so, one of the ports started to misbehave. It would not work with certain computers. So I moved the UTP cables along until it worked again.
One year later another port started to behave erratically. So I had to take it out and put it out of its misery. I cannot recommend this type of switch, contrary to my experiences with the much cheaper Longshine products.

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