"switch" or a "hub"

I'm in need of more ethernet ports for my home beyond the current 4 provided by a NETGEAR wireless router. Its been suggested that I simply add a hub or a swtich that will add more ethernet ports. My question is, what is the difference between a "hub" & a "switch"? Will either allow me to still share printers & files currently on the entire system freely among all computers?

 

i'm just about to ask for help on setting up a network for my situation - as well as $$$ (i know little about networking)

but i was reading this before i came here and this may help??? Hope it does?

"Now you have to decide if you want to use a switch, hub, or router. There is a difference in hubs and switches, although a switch and router are basically the same thing except a router has a proxy server, which allows the sharing of broadband Internet connections. A 10/100mbps switch is faster than a 10/100mbps hub. The reason the switch is faster than the hub is that your bandwidth is split up on the hub. On a switch each person gets full access to all the bandwidth. So the max capacity of a 10/100mbps hub is 100mbps. If there are already people using the hub and they are using 85mbps you’d be able to use only 15mbps. Or if they are only using 10mpbs you’d have ability to use 90mbps. On a switch if you are connecting at a 100mbps and there are 10 people connecting you are really connecting at 100mbps. A 10/100mbps hub is faster than a 10mbps hub. As a side note now 10/100/1000mbps devices are coming available. They are faster than the 10/100mbps devices but also more expensive. Mbps stands for Megabits per second. So the number plus this unit is the rough transfer rate of your devices."

http://www.iamnotageek.com/a/25-p1.php (link to page)

 

yeah go with a switch if you can, although they are more expensive and for basic home networking you really won't notice a difference unless you are transferring large files from computer to computer.

 

I already have a router, but it only has 4 ports. I am in need of more ports & hence the reason I am asking about how to do it.

 

Just plug in a switch to one of the ports on the router. Even if the router only has 4 ports and you are using it for a DHCP server it should give out up to 254 IP addresses.
You may need a crossover cable to hook them up that way though if you use a switch to router. Usually switch to switch connections are crossover and router to switch is a striaght through cable but many consumer grade routers also incorporate a switch for all but the uplink WAN port making it more of a switch to switch connection than a true router to switch.

The main difference in a switch and a hub is that when a packet enters a hub it is mirrored out all ports. A switch maintains a MAC address to port table and only sends a packet out to the port that it supposed to go, not all ports. The other main difference is related to collision domains. In an Ethernet environment if two or more devices transmit a packet at the same time there is a collision and the packet is discarded and has to be retransmitted. A switch eliminates this by having a separate link to each device so that each packet cannot have a collision with another like a shared media device such as a hub.