[Tfug] Switches -- and hubs!

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Erich,

> Use switches, Hubs are definitely less efficient.

I'm speaking solely of power consumption, here.  A 10Mb hub
would handle household VoIP traffic just as well as a 10Mb *switch*!

> I used to have hubs at my place, but I've converted to switches.
> They run 24/7. One of them produces a faint whine,
> but this is tolerable.

I'm not worried about noise.  I have a pair of 16 port 10/100 
switches currently and have taken to installing a power switch
in both of them so I can power them off when not in use.  This
won't be a viable option for the phone/entertainment system,
though so I want to think carefully before settling on a
solution that will be burning power needlessly -- just in case
someone wants to use the phone, etc.  :<

> I've tested Skype  at my house. This requires a lot of 
> bandwidth but the system can handle it.  Rather
> than tie up the network with transferring large files I use
> a USB 2.0 drive that I carry around and plug into whatever
> machine needs the big files.

Sneakernet-ing a couple of hundred GB is just not my idea of
a good use of time.  :>   I much prefer dragging a file hierarchy
over and letting the little lights blink for a while...