Hub into a Switch Operation

jezg76

I have a question I hope someone can clarify.

I am churning away at the 640-822 material and I just can't figure something out and it is bothering me.

If multiple hosts are plugged into a hub and the hub is plugged into a single switch port, what kind of bandwidth and duplex do the hosts run at?

I do thank anyone taking the time to clarify this for me, as it is really bugging me.

I understand a hub is half-duplex onry and a switch allows for full-duplex operation. What I don't get is how the bandwidth is divied up between the hosts plugged into the hub. All the hosts plugged into the hub are in the same collision domain. After that, I need some help.

Thanks!

jediknight

Hubs are only capable of half-duplex operation and share bandwidth. So if you had an 10 port 100Mbps hub, the hosts connected would be running half-duplex and sharing the 100Mbps bandwidth among all the hosts on the hub unlike a switch where each port can run at full duplex and gets it's own 100Mbps dedicated bandwidth.

To answer your question, It does not matter that it is plugged into a switch port, the hosts will still run at half duplex and the hub shares the bandwidth will all the hosts. The bandwidth is shared by using CSMA/CD - First come First Served. The hub does not do any dividing up of the bandwidth, CSMA/CD takes care of this.

tech-airman

jezg76 wrote:

I have a question I hope someone can clarify.

I am churning away at the 640-822 material and I just can't figure something out and it is bothering me.

If multiple hosts are plugged into a hub and the hub is plugged into a single switch port, what kind of bandwidth and duplex do the hosts run at?

I do thank anyone taking the time to clarify this for me, as it is really bugging me.

I understand a hub is half-duplex onry and a switch allows for full-duplex operation. What I don't get is how the bandwidth is divied up between the hosts plugged into the hub. All the hosts plugged into the hub are in the same collision domain. After that, I need some help.

Thanks!

jezg76,

Let's take this one step at a time. What is the bandwidth between two hosts with 10Mbps NICs connected by a crossover cable?