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Switch
Switches were developed as improvements of hubs. Switches differ from hubs primarily in their ability to "think along". They do this by distributing the information packets in an optimised manner.
Multiple information packets can travel through the switch at the same time. The total bandwidth (data throughput) for a switch is substantially higher than a hub's. Switches gradually learn which workstations are connected to which ports. Thus, no unnecessary additional ports are used during additional data transmissions, but only the port to which the destination workstation is connected.
Today's speeds are 10, 10/100 or 1,000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet). Switches do not need to be configured. The higher price aside, switches provide many advantages compared to hubs.
Since today's data volume continues to increase, computer systems must also provide more performance capacity to handle future growth. Depending on the data volume, only switches are capable of such performance capacity today. Moreover, today's switches already feature a very attractive price/performance ratio.
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