Shall I use swith or can i go without it

[cammell]

Im planing small home network, as on attached draw. Is use of switch mandatory or i can go without it ?
Thanks for help.

 

[Iceblue]

I've never put in a Ethernet over power network, but it is a shared medium network. You do not need a switch. However, I noticed you indicate crossover cables - AFAIK you do not need those, either; ordinary ethernet cables will work fine.

 

[WilliamT]

A switch isn't necessary with your setup. You can use internet connection sharing to have all your PCs hit the web. You'll need 2 network cards in the internet PC. One connects to the cable modem and the other connects to your network. Even with a switch, you would still need to setup internet connection sharing.

I think internet connection sharing was created to share machines with a single dial-up connection but it should work for broadband as well.

Microsoft recommends using a router instead because its more secure.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308522/en-us

"Internet Connection Sharing on a Windows XP-based computer for sharing a connection to the Internet with other computers on the home network. (However, for security reasons, we recommend that you use a router rather than Internet Connection Sharing.)"

To use ICS:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306126/

I would just get a router, with a built in multi port switch, and hook the wall socket ethernet connection that would go into your internet PC into the router unit and have the other 2 machines obtain their IP and DNS dynamically by the router which acts as your DHCP server. This way any PC can hit the web even if the internet PC is turned off.