I'll try to explain this so that it's not too difficult.
The short answer, hubs/switches operate at Layer 2 (Data Link), routers at Layer 3 (Internet Protocol)
The long answer... (I'm going to assume hubs and switches are the same for simplicity)...
Think of a hub as your street. There are many houses on your street which we will call hosts (computers, printers, etc...). Now if you want to send a letter to someone across the street, you can just walk across the street and drop it in his mailbox because you both live on the same street and you know exactly where that house is. This is the same as your desktop computer wanting to talk to your printer over the network... Their both plugged into the same hub (i.e. street) so they can just directly talk to each other. A hubs job is just to connect all of your devices so they can directly talk to each other.
Now what if you want to send a letter to someone in another city? You can't just walk across the street because you have no idea where this letter is supposed to go. So what do you do? You give it to someone else that should know what to do with it like your mailman. Your mailman is analagous to your home router. If you need to send something to someone that's not on your street (i.e. hub), then you give it to your mailman (i.e. router). So, your mailman gets your letter and has no idea what to do with it either, so he takes it to somewhere that might (the post office, a bigger router). Your local post office has no idea what to do so they send it to a regional office (an even bigger router). Finally, the regional office knows another regional office in the general area of the recipient so it sends it there. This office sends your letter to a smaller office closer to the recipient and so on. Finally the mailman in the recipients street (their hub) gets the letter and delivers it to the correct house. The job of a router is relaying information across the Internet much like the post office relays mail across the world.
Hope that helps a bit.
2006-09-09 13:05:43
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answer #1
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answered by sundles 3
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I think you mean the difference between a hub and a switch. The difference between a hub and a switch is that a switch only sends the signal to the machine it as intended for, a hub sends it to every machine connected to itself. Hubs and switches have no controls over what signals will and will not be transmitted, a router can route to a specific destination or filter certain kinds of traffic. Unless you are using very old hardware I doubt you can even buy a true hub anymore, everything has switching capability now.
2006-09-09 12:27:26
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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hub n. In a community, a gadget becoming to be a member of communique lines at a important region, offering a bother-free connection to all gadgets on the community. The term is an analogy to the hub of a wheel. See additionally energetic hub, switching hub. swap n. 4. In networking, a gadget able to forwarding packets directly to the ports linked with particular community addresses. See additionally bridge, multilayer, router.
2016-11-07 00:13:58
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answer #3
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answered by rangnow 4
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A hub is used to connect multiple devices together on a lan. A router is used to route information off the local lan to a wan in most cases the internet.
2006-09-09 12:26:14
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answer #4
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answered by Interested Dude 7
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The hub is used to connect the computers in a LAN network. The router is used to connect the computers in the Lan network to the Net ;)
2006-09-09 12:29:37
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answer #5
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answered by Domnul Andrei 2
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a router uses a computer to set up and then uses that computer as a gateway to the Internet for other computers whereas a hub connects to the Internet itself and computers connected to the hub have to request the information and then get a yes answer with the information or a no answer without the information.
2006-09-09 13:55:36
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answer #6
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answered by Anonymous
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Hubs were used just to connect computers together on one network. They have now been replaced by switches which are more efficient.
Routers sit on the edge of your network and allow you to talk to another network (e.g. internet)
Different beasts for different jobs.
Some small home routers have a switch built in. Many nowadays have everything built in to one (Modem, Router, Switch & Wireless) Makes life easy for the home user huh?
2006-09-09 12:29:19
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answer #7
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answered by teef_au 6
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hub - a common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN.
router- device that forwards data packets along networks. A router is connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs or WANs or a LAN and its ISP’s network.
2006-09-10 17:59:31
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answer #8
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answered by frogstompberserk 2
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A hub connects links, like computers and printers in the network , while routers connect networks.
2006-09-09 12:32:02
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answer #9
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answered by Anonymous
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a hub is merely a splitter for a lan cable. it operates on the physical layer only. it is not intelligent. it knows nothing of broadcast domains or anything like that
a router is a network layer device. it knows the diference between broadcast domains, has a routing table, and makes decisions on which way to send a packet based on its routing table. it can have routing rules programmed into it.
2006-09-09 12:31:46
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answer #10
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answered by Stand-up Philosopher 5
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