Managed switch

[almighty_MOE]

Im planning to buy a netgear managed switch mainly for aesthetics and easy deployement; this one specifically "GSS108E" though i wont be using any of its managed switch capabilities

can i use this as a normal switch/hub

[ARikozuM]

Most likely, yes. Are you wiring your house?

[Mark77]

Yes, providing it is appropriately configured with the VLAN and the other stuff disabled.  Basically if you factory reset it, it will act like a normal "dumb" switch like you buy at the computer shop for $20. 

[Wombo]

31 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

Yes, providing it is appropriately configured with the VLAN and the other stuff disabled.  Basically if you factory reset it, it will act like a normal "dumb" switch like you buy at the computer shop for $20. 

Managed Switch > Unmanaged Switch > Dumb Switch

 

A "dumb switch" is a hub, not a switch at all.

[Wombo]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

doe a dumb switch and an unmanaged switch accomplish the same thing then? Turning one ethernet port into more?

Switches make intelligent forwarding decisions based on layer 2, typically mac address. A hub has no concept of addresses of any kind and just broadcasts everything out every port whenever it receives a frame. Even that is technically incorrect as they doesn't even understand frames, they only understand electrical impulses and how to replicate them. Hense why some people call them dumb switches because they can be used in place of a switch but they have no intelligence whatsoever and are, well, a dumb choice as they effective make full-duplex communication impossible.

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

doesn't a dumb switch and an unmanaged switch accomplish the same thing then? Turning one ethernet port into more?

Pretty much. The managed switch will intelligently route data through (at the basic setting) while the hub will send signals as they come, nothing more.

[Mark77]

"managed switch" means features like an administration interface, VLAN capability, statistics counters, SNMP, and lots of other features.  The Netgear in question has very basic port stats monitoring and VLAN capabilities. 

 

"dumb switch" means basically a switch that deals purely with Ethernet frames, and doesn't have any administration/monitoring/control interface.

 

"hub" means a device that literally repeats everything received on any station to all other stations.  Basically creating a common collision domain amongst all attached devices.   These types of devices basically aren't sold anymore as switch chipsets are dirt cheap.  I'm not even sure there is such thing as a gig-E "hub", as opposed to a gig-E switch.

 

 

[Wombo]

8 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

"managed switch" means features like an administration interface, VLAN capability, statistics counters, SNMP, and lots of other features.  The Netgear in question has very basic port stats monitoring and VLAN capabilities. 

 

"dumb switch" means basically a switch that deals purely with Ethernet frames, and doesn't have any administration/monitoring/control interface.

 

"hub" means a device that literally repeats everything received on any station to all other stations.  Basically creating a common collision domain amongst all attached devices.   These types of devices basically aren't sold anymore as switch chipsets are dirt cheap.  I'm not even sure there is such thing as a gig-E "hub", as opposed to a gig-E switch.

 

 

That would be managed switch, unmanaged switch, and hub/dumb switch.

[Mark77]

"switch" always implies that it is not just a blind repeating 'hub'. 

[Wombo]

1 hour ago, almighty_MOE said:

Im planning to buy a netgear managed switch mainly for aesthetics and easy deployement; this one specifically "GSS108E" though i wont be using any of its managed switch capabilities

can i use this as a normal switch/hub

I would just buy a regular unmanaged switch. While the managed one will likely have more features that could be used in the future if you ever needed them, the added price premium isn't going to be worth it if you don't plan on using those features. Avoid hubs/dumb switches as they will introduce an excess of issues and will degrade network performance.