Figure 9-1
If your PCs are in
different rooms, you
need to run cables from
room to room.
Internet
ADSL or
Cable Router
Switch
Printer
Desktop PC Desktop PC Laptop PC Laptop PC
92 Part II: Intermediate
You can connect one switch to another easily enough, but each switch still requires
its own power supply. So having, say, one 16-port switch is a neater solution
than having two 8-port switches??”at least, assuming that you want to have all the
ports in the same place. If you need to have one set of ports in one room (or area of
your home) and another set in a separate room, having two separate switches will be
much easier, as you will be able to connect the PCs and other devices to each switch
with short cables rather than needing to use longer cables.
You can also use a hub instead of a switch, but there??™s no point in doing so unless you already
have an old hub that you want to reuse. Hubs are slower than switches, and whereas they used
to be substantially less expensive, now they are only marginally less expensive at best. (FYI,
???switch??? is actually short for ???switching hub?????”in other words, a switch is a smarter kind of hub
that switches data from one port to another.)
Cables
Cables carry the Ethernet data from each PC to the switch, and vice versa. You also
normally connect other devices, such as your cable or ADSL router or your printer, to
the network with cables.
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