A very simple way to start a home LAN
Written: Sep 06 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Simple, sturdy construction, low cost
Cons: none to speak of
The Bottom Line: This hub is great for setting up a small home network that does not need routing and NAT services. Cheap, easy, and sturdy.
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| whitesf's Full Review: Netgear EN104 4-ports 10Mbps Ethernet Hub |
Great for starting a small LAN at home
This unit will get you going with file sharing and internet connection sharing. To accomplish this, you'll need an ethernet card installed in each computer you want to include in the home network, a Category5 ethernet cable for each computer, and an ethernet hub (the Netgear EN104 in this case). Connect the computers to the hub via the Cat5 cables and you're ready to go! This is a 10Mbps hub, which is plenty enough for home networking.
Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Using the ICS feature built in to the latest versions of Windows, you can have multiple computers at home using a single ISP account. This saves money and avoids conflict over computer scheduling time between family members.
The down side to this is that the computer that connects directly to the ISP must be on and connected in order to share the connection with the other computers on your LAN.
"Uplink" Port
There is a push-n-stick button on the rigght side of the front of the hub that toggles Port #4 between normal operation and "uplink" operation. The uplink mode is used to connect to another hub or perhaps a bridge or router. This features allows for growth in your network.
LED indicators
The unit has two main LEDs labeled "Power" and "Col". The POWER LED is self-explanatory. The "Col" LED (for COLLISION) lights every time two packets collide on the network. This occurs somewhat frequently, and isn't a big deal really. It does come in handy when diagnosing network performance bottlenecks, however. The more computers on your network, the more collision will occur. With just one hub, you won't have to worry about collision, but if you added two or three more hubs and 6 or 8 more computers, it would start to become a problem. If you decide to go this big with you home network, go ahead a get a router.
Each port also has two individual LEDs labeled "Link" and "Rx". LINK lights up and stays lit when a cable is plugged in and connected to an active network card in a computer. RX blinks when data is being transfered through that port. This helps to see if a machine is sending and/or receiving data.
Power supply
This unit is a powered hub, and comes with a rather large power adapter.
Sturdy construction
The Netgear EN104 is made of thin but sturdy metal, as opposed to many hubs that are made of plastic. It also has four rubber feet on the bottom.
Overall
This is a good hub, all things considered. It's sturdy, has lots of features, and is really cheap. I got mine at Best Buy for $29, and it has served me well.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
whitesf
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Location: Staten Island, NY
Reviews written: 43
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
I'm a hombrewing computer nerd guitar nut.
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