Hooking Up 101 PCs

[danielooi]

Hi,

I've got a USD1500 budget and I need to hook up 101 PCs exactly for a LAN event and I figure you guys should know best.

I have been looking around and I *think* I have a few options.

5 x Hubs + 1 x 8port Switch
or
5 x Hubs (uplink/stack)
or
5 x Swiches (uplink/stack)

This will be a week-long event and the PCs are occupied up to 20 hours a day for LAN Gaming purposes.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[FO_SHO]

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=Gigafast+EE2400G+24-

I was told a hub is slower cause it splits connections, but I may be wrong. I think a switch like this one would be good.

 

[jihiggs]

forget the hubs. your asking for trouble. if your serious about it and you want reliability, 1500 isnt going to cut it. if this is going to be permanent, i would get cisco switches with gigabit adapters to daisy chain the switches.

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[camieabz]

If you can go all switches then do so. Hubs add to network congestion.

<b><font color=blue>~ <A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=324&s=58e94ba84a16bedfebbf0f416d5bac48" target="_new">System Specs</A> ~<font color=blue></b>

 

[Dev]

Hmm, I can't see how this is sufficient. I'm guessing that the 5 switches are 8 port as in the first example. Thats 7 pcs plus uplink per switch, resulting in 35 pc's having connections.

Anyways, if you have enough ports I'd recomend going with switches only as communication happens host to host (actually, switch interface to switch interface, but who cares...).

If you need hubs you should connect as few pc's as possible to each hub, then connect the hub to the switch using a hub and spoke model (one switch in the center connecting to the other switches, then connect the hubs to these switches and then finally the pc's). That way you get the most og the bandwidth.

Given your budget of 1500 though, I'd buy some cheap netgear/hawkings/linksys switches at the nearest computer chain store. For less than fifty bucks you get an eight port switch with a mac table of 1k addresses. That's 210 ports for pc's and 30 uplinks in a daisy chain (don't daisy chain though, use the model I gave above, or you might have a loop and your users will have zero connectivity).

To jihiggs: While I'm not to active on these boards I lurk enough to know you as someone with mostly good ideas. Was that Cisco comment serious? Don't lead poor dan down that road

To dan: Forget about Cisco and forget about Gigabit. Cisco is pro equipment and certainly needed for big business. You don't ask about VLANS, MPLS, trunking and such so if you don't need it, don't buy it.
Sure Gigabit is fast, but are your gamers ready to sacrifice about a GHz of processing power? Probably not. (BTW, a common rule of thumb for networking is 1Hz per 1 bps).

Alright, that was long...


Good luck,

Dev


Poor windows was not a brave soul. Threatened by the force of General Protection and Major Problem the little OS committed suicide by hanging.

 

[TheCommGuy]

Hmmmmmm- I agree with everyone else- GO WITH SWITCHES!!! Yes hubs are slower, yes hubs cause more errors which is more so important. Spend a few bucks and get switches- you will need it.

<font color=blue>/Next time there is a war in Europe- the loser gets stuck with France this time.</font color=blue> Support your troops!!!!

 

[Howard]

Go with switches, hubs do slow your speed down.

 

[RobertNKC]

As per everyone else, Hubs BAD. Also, if this is a flat network (all on one IP scheme) then standard layer2 switches are fine. Linksys, 3Com, Cisco 2950s.

If you are going to use VLANs, then you want a switch that goes at least basic layer3. Cisco 3550, Extreme 48si, maybe even a HP Procurve chassis would be cheaper than buying multiple switches.