22 Apr
2002
22 Apr
'02
1:12 a.m.
On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Chad Fernandez wrote:
By commercial grade I just meant that I wanted to
avoid the home grade
stuff that may not have features, or only a few connections. The type
of thing that Best Buy, Staples, or another cunsumer oriented store may
carry for your average Windows user.
Amazingly, the home grade stuff that's on the shelves lately really is
plenty for a home net. The features it doesn't have are next to useless
on a network with fewer than 25 nodes.
Stay away from the firewall appliances though. They're notoriously
easy to get through.
What's the difference between managed and
unmanaged?
A serial port, a password, and several decimal points.
Seriously, a managed switch allows you to define which nodes can "go"
where, force connection parameters - 10Mb or 100, full-duplex or half -
keep transfer statistics, etc. A really good one will cost over a
grand. Like I said, I have one, and I prefer my little $70 NetGear
10/100 auto-sensing switch.
Doc