Whats the difference between an ethernet router and a switch?

Question

Just curious about it cause I'm pretty sure they would be the same... I'm probably wrong though...

Answer 1

without the OSI layer breakdown.. here's the easiest way to think about it. routers are used to move data from one network to another and switches have no idea how to do that and just move data within the same network. Routers look at IP addresses, switches generally do not.

Your computer has an IP address,, say 192.168.0.100,, when your computer wants to talk to a web site, it looks up the IP address of the web site (through DNS) and comes up with say 216.52.231.10.. your computer sees that its network of 192.168.0.X is not the same as 216.52.231.X so it sends your request to its default router (often seen as default gateway). The router knows how to get your data to 216.52.231.10 and it passes your data to other routers generally until it makes it there..

Switches move data between the ports on the switch itself.. say you have a 12 port switch with different computers plugged in to each port. when one computer wants to connect to another computer,, say 192.168.0.100 wants to talk to 192.168.0.200 ,, it does that comparison to see if it should send it to the default router.. but this time it sees the network matches.. so it asks the network which computer has the ip address 192.168.0.200 it finds out some information about the other computer (called the MAC address) and then sends its information based on that.. the switch knows which MAC address is plugged into which port and it only sends the data to the port for the right MAC address which means all the other computers do not have to worry about that data and dont get bothered by seeing it.

routers that have say a 8 port switch on them are really a router and a switch built into one. Such as most of the broadband routers and wifi routers. routers that companies use and ISP's use do not have switches built in because they are more specific purpose devices and can costs 10's of thousands of dollar..

Answer 2

Not the same.

Computer networking uses the OSI 7 layer model to logically separate functions. For the purpose of this question we are talking about layers 1, 2 and 3.

Layer 1 is the PHY (physical layer) or physical wires, i.e. CAT5 or Fiber Optic etc.. (fyi - Ethernet could run on any physical medium)

Layer 2 is the logic layer - this where Ethernet lives. Other layer 2 technologies are Frame Relay, PPP, ATM. Specific to Ethernet - An Ethernet "frame" has a source address and a destination Ethernet (a.k.a. MAC address). Ethernet switches "switch frames" based on destination MAC address.

Layer 3 is the network layer - this is where IP lives. There are other layer 3 technologies, but IP is the king. Layer 3 data is called packets. Layer 3 packets are transmitted inside of Layer 2 frames. Every IP packet has source and destination IP address. Routers "route packets" based on destination IP address. A router strips the layer 2 frame off, then routes the IP packet and regenerates a new layer 2 frame with the router's MAC address as the source MAC address. Typically a router is used between "layer 2" technologies, like Ethernet to ADSL (which is really ATM).

Answer 3

There is no such thing as an ethernet router. A router works at Layer 3 of the OSI Network reference model while a switch (Ethernet switch is one type but here are others)works at Layer 2 of the OSI Network reference model. Ethernet is a standard that crosses Layer 2 and Layer 1(yes I know it is confusing but Ethernet was standardized not by OSI but by IEEE). Today companies build devices that have a router or router functions in it together with a switch. Layer 2 is the Data Link layer and Layer 3 is the Network Layer.

Answer 4

Ahmad is a bit high level on the explanation. A router, routes and a switch, well it doesn't really switch, but it enables multiple devices to get connected. Like a business will use 1 router to connect to the outside, but may have a bunch of switches or hubs allowing all the work stations to connect to the router. At home you may have a router with a few ports on the back to connect.

Answer 5

I'm not completely sure about this, but I think that an ethernet router is a switch, but not all switches are ethernet routers.

Answer 6

you need to be specific about switch, i have no clue what your conext of a switch is. An ethernet router is something which gets high speed internet to one computer through an ethernet cable, and can also get it to many other

Answer 7

Some good answers.

Routers use intelligent technolgy to correctly assign IP numbers,secure network & route traffic to your home network.

Switches flood all ports regardless, always sending packets to see which computers are connected and route traffic accordingly. The switch/hub are the lesser of the two when it comes to technology.

Answer 8

a switch will broadcast the data on the network all pcs will her bt nly the 1 with the correct mac and ip will reply and get it, a router doesnt broadcast it keeps a mac and ip rec of all clients on its network so it sends data directly to the dest pc!