I picked this baby up for a mere 20ukp, not bad considering it's made by Netgear. I bought it to link the four computers which I have at home: 2 PC's, an SGI (IRIX) workstation and an old apple mac.

Why you may need a hub

If you own two or more home computers and you need to share files between them then a Hub is almost a necessity. Sure, you can transfer files using a standard floppy drive but it's slow and inconvenient. Networking is also a great way of sharing an internet connection between machines i.e.. you can have one machine set up as a proxy server and all the others can access the web through the proxy.

I should point out that if you only have two computers that you plan to network together then you really don't need a hub at all. A simple RJ45 crossover cable will prove to be a lot cheaper and more convenient than buying a hub.


Who is this hub aimed at

The Netgear EN104TP (catchy name,eh?) is primarily aimed at the home user. The fact that it can only transfer files at a maximum rate of 10MB (Mega Bits, not Megabytes!) per second limits it's usefulness in anything more than the most basic home setup. Couple this with the fact that it only contains four RJ45 ports and you have a very basic Hub indeed, ample for most operations such as transferring files and sharing a dial-up connection between your machines but way too slow for anything else. For instance, if you plan to link up a number of computers for Quake death matching then you'll really have to look at a hub with a higher bandwidth. 10mbs just isn't fast enough for smooth game play I'm afraid.


The bottom line

This is an excellent little hub for the basic home user. The documentation is excellent, it looks cool and you even get two screws and a couple of raw plugs to mount the hub to your wall.

Excellent





Recommended: Yes