Router/Switch?

Links appear to fail.

I see it as a switch commonly just moves data packets around without any thought, whereas a router is an intelligent swtich in that it knows where to send data to and the best route. No doubt someone with a better knowledge will surpass this explanation though :p
 
First off, neither of those links work.

Routers, as their name suggest, route traffic between two networks. Switches connect machines on the one network. You can find that and plenty more courtesy of Google...

You'd want a switch if you had a router because routers don't have an infinite number of ports and like the WNR834B, most don't have GigE ports.
If your machines have gigabit network cards, you'll get faster transfer speeds within the network with a GS605 but your internet connection will be the same.
 
RKO said:
Links appear to fail.

I see it as a switch commonly just moves data packets around without any thought, whereas a router is an intelligent swtich in that it knows where to send data to and the best route. No doubt someone with a better knowledge will surpass this explanation though :p
Click to expand...

You're close. A hub is compleatly dumb, it sends data out on all ports without knowing which one is the correct one to the destination. A switch builds up a table of what devices can be reached by which of its ports, so the data is sent only out on the correct cable.

A router is like a switch, but it is used to join together 2 or more sepearte networks, Like a home LAN to your ISPs network. A router will also provide features that will help with the LAN to ISP connection, such as NAT (network address translation), and can also act as a DHCP server (assign IP address to the LAN devices), and some routers can also act as a firewall.
 
A router can

1) Connect mulitple networsk like a network(subnet) with an ip range of 80.xxx.xxx.xxx to a subnet like 192.xxx.xxx.xxx for example, a switch can't do this.
2) Routers can find the best path to send a packet to, the next hop(next router) in a network using protocols like RIP for example.
3) Routers can add various security.
4) Routers have ram, cpu, motherboard(ish) and are similar to pcs i many respects
5) Most routers have a DHCP server built in and various other goodies.

Switches map the pcs' MAC address to the port the pc is connected to and hence can direct the packets to the right port. So switches are really forwarding devices but only within one subnet at a time. Ok this is a pretty basic explantion.....

The problem is that most home "routers" are actually routers with an integrated 4-port switche build into them so a 2-in-1 product and people think they are using a "pure" router whereas they are actually using the built i switch to connect the pcs ethernet/usb connection too ....

This is for home gear, for enterpise gear your usually talking about cisco routers which are basically the same thing but have a few more functions to them for example have modular expansion capabilites etc...
 
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