{"id":6255,"date":"2021-01-26T17:28:32","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T15:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/?p=6255"},"modified":"2021-01-26T17:28:34","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T15:28:34","slug":"whats-the-difference-between-a-router-switch-and-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/whats-the-difference-between-a-router-switch-and-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s the difference between a router, switch and hub?"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Although a router, switch and hub all help direct network traffic, the devices transmit packets in different ways. Discover the differences among these network devices.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/onlineImages\/froehlich_andrew.jpg\" alt=\"Andrew Froehlich\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/contributor\/Andrew-Froehlich\">Andrew Froehlich<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>While routers, switches and hubs are all network devices, they all serve different purposes.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A network hub is a node that&nbsp;broadcasts&nbsp;data to every computer or Ethernet-based device connected to it. A switch is a device that channels incoming data from any one of multiple input ports to the specific output port that will take it toward its intended destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A router is a\u00a0physical or\u00a0virtual appliance\u00a0that passes information between two or more\u00a0packet-switched\u00a0computer networks &#8212; analyzing a given data\u00a0packet&#8217;s destination IP address, calculating the best way for it to reach that destination and then forwarding it accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s explore these devices further. First, we&#8217;ll look closer at the difference between hubs and switches, and then we&#8217;ll compare and contrast switches and routers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Hubs vs. switches<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The earliest\u00a0Ethernet\u00a0networks had no concept of virtual LANs (VLANs). Thus, an entire network consisted of a single IP\u00a0subnet. If you wanted to connect two or more devices on the LAN using Ethernet, you would use a network hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A hub is simply a multiport Ethernet repeater that operates at the\u00a0physical\u00a0&#8212; or Layer 1 &#8212; segment of the\u00a0OSI model. When the hub receives information from a sending device, it simply repeats, or broadcasts, that same information out all ports on the hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Hub, Switch, &amp; Router Explained - What&#039;s the difference?\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1z0ULvg_pW8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption><em><strong>This video explains the differences between a<br>router, switch and hub.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The hub-connected device that was meant to receive the information will indeed receive it. However, so will all other connected devices. Those devices simply ignore unnecessary broadcasts. That said, a hub quickly becomes an inefficient mode of communication transport as the number of connected devices increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of this, the network switch was invented. A traditional switch operates at the\u00a0data-link\u00a0&#8212; or Layer 2 &#8212; segment of the OSI model. Switches offer two key features that differentiate them from hubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How a network switch works<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>First, a switch can segment the network into multiple, logical LANs known as VLANs. This segmentation breaks up a LAN with a single\u00a0broadcast\u00a0domain into multiple broadcast domains. This helps to reduce the amount of broadcast traffic congestion on larger networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, a Layer 2 switch can either statically or dynamically maintain a table that lists the switch port number along with the\u00a0<strong>Media Access Control (MAC)<\/strong> address\u00a0of the device connected to it. The beauty here is the switch no longer must repeat communications out all Ethernet ports. Instead, the switch will look in the Ethernet frames received by the sending device. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The frame will contain a destination MAC address, which is cross-referenced in the switch MAC address table. If the switch knows the specific port that the MAC address corresponds to, it is sent only out that port as a\u00a0unicast\u00a0frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the following diagram, we see the difference between a hub and a switch:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/onlineimages\/networking-hub_vs_switch.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"603\" height=\"1129\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Routers vs. switches<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As mentioned earlier, Layer 2 switches can break up a single LAN into multiple VLANs. Each\u00a0VLAN is its own IP subnet. Devices within the same VLAN and IP subnet can communicate at Layer 2 without any additional components. However, if a device on VLAN 10, for example, wants to communicate to a device on VLAN 20 &#8212; this is known as\u00a0interVLAN routing\u00a0&#8212; it requires a router that operates at the\u00a0network, or Layer 3, segment of the OSI model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"What is the OSI Model (Open Systems Interconnection Model)?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jlp8HL_iIqo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of switching frames using MAC addresses, routing between subnets uses IP addresses that are found within IP\u00a0network packets\u00a0that encapsulate Ethernet frames with IP address source and destination information. Traditionally, a dedicated router would provide routing services for Layer 2 switches. However, a more\u00a0modern approach\u00a0on enterprise networks is to use a Layer 3 switch, which combines routing and switching functions in a single device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>Although a router, switch and hub all help direct network traffic, the devices transmit packets in different ways. Discover the differences among these network devices. By Andrew Froehlich While routers, switches and hubs are all network devices, they all serve different purposes. A network hub is a node that&nbsp;broadcasts&nbsp;data to every computer or Ethernet-based device connected to it. A switch<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/whats-the-difference-between-a-router-switch-and-hub\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185,4,30,3,188,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-center-hardware-terminology","category-datacenter-news","category-expert-advise-and-opinion","category-industry-news-and-expert-advise","category-network-infrastructure","category-tekmart-enterprise-hardware-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6256,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions\/6256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}