Monday, February 16, 2009

Dual Speed Ethernet Hubs

In the early days of Fast Ethernet, Ethernet switches were relatively expensive devices. However, hubs suffered from the problem that if there were any 10BASE-T devices connected then the whole system would have to run at 10 Mbit. Therefore a compromise between a hub and a switch appeared known as a dual speed hub. These devices consisted of an internal two-port switch, dividing the 10BASE-T (10 Mbit) and 100BASE-T (100 Mbit) segments. The device would typically consist of more than two physical ports. When a network device becomes active on any of the physical ports, the device attaches it to either the 10BASE-T segment or the 100BASE-T segment, as appropriate. This prevented the need for an all-or-nothing migration from 10BASE-T to 100BASE-T networks. These devices are also known as dual-speed hubs because the traffic between devices connected at the same speed is not switched.

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