This is a add-on to
Agthorr's writeup:
A switch is very similar, in use, to a
hub, and one can be substituted for the other. A hub is sort of the center of an
ethernet LAN. All
PCs,
servers,
network printers, etc, connect to the hub, and from the hub to
everything else. In
layman’s terms, when a pc sends
information to another pc, the signal goes to everything that is attached to the hub. A switch, on the other hand, can better determine where the signal is meant to go, and only sends it there, greatly cutting down the
traffic on the network. Sort of streamlining the process. This is a
good thing. Unfortunately, switches are much more
expensive than hubs. That is a
bad thing.