On Nov 20, 23:11, Tony Duell wrote:
> Do I have a point? I guess my point is I'm
trying to get off 10Base2,
why
Hmmm... I'm moving towards 10Base2 and away from 10BaseT
For older (classic) computers, the bus bandwidth won't support 100Mbps
ethernet, so you have to go with one of the 10Mbps standards (I'll ignore
the original 3Mbps.. :-)).
10BaseT seems to have advantages when :
The computers are spread out all over the building (which doesn't apply
to my setup, where most of the networkable machines are next to each
other)
The network is being used by a number of people. After all, unplugging
the 'wrong' BNC connector from a T-piece can bring the entire network
down. This doesn't happen if you're the only person fiddling with the
network.
Against that :
10BaseT needs a hub. This is one more thing to find space for, one more
thing to have to power, and one more thing that you have to maintain.
Getting spare chips for most hubs is a lot harder than getting spare
chips
for 10base2 transceivers.
Adding a machine to a 10BaseT network means running a cable back to the
hub. Adding a machine to a 10Base2 network can mean just patching it to
the cables on the nearest machine. Yes, the latter does bring the network
down, but with my setup, that's less of a problem than running another
cable.
The BNC connector is a lot faster to wire than that darn RJ45,
particularly when you have fiddle about with the wires to get them to the
right contacts. And the solid, metal, BNC connector would seem to be more
reliable than the RJ45 as well.
I tend to disagree with that. I've had lots of BNC's come off or go flaky
after someone has pulled the cable, but I've only once had that happen to
an RJ45. And I bet I can strip and crimp an RJ45 as fast as most people
can crimp a BNC.
The reason I like UTP is that if you once put in the infrastructure, you
can use the structured wiring for lots of things. At work, we run
Ethernet, RS232, telephones (POTS), ISDN, and video over Cat5/5e structured
wiring. At home, I put in cables in lots of places and use it for serial,
network, ISDN, and POTS. You do need to put enough cable in enough places,
though.
The other reason, of course, is that there are lots more LEDs to flash if
you use a hub :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York