A hub comes in very handy here
Hello XV105,
As you might have gathered, my pseudonym is not sd..... but I feel I should state here that the chances of you owning or be able to buy a "hub" in 2009 are very, very slim.
Even 8 port boxes these days are switches.
In a day to day environment, hubs are more trouble than they are worth. I would not recommend you go out and buy one if you don't already own one because you will find very little useful use for it, unless you are plannig long term wiresharking ... but even then, you have to be very careful about how the hub is deployed.
What you should be looking to achieve, if you've got an unmanaged switch is either of the following :
(1) Get a managed switch (might be seen as a worthwile longterm investment, you can get small 8 or 12 port ones, no need for office sized ones)
-OR-
(2) Implement an in-line monitoring solution (i.e. two NICs on the PC)
UPDATED TO ADD :
Addmitedly, on a small home network, you probably will not see the difference between hub and switch unless things get really bad or you know what you are looking for. However the point I'm trying to make is hubs are bad feng shui on a network.
