🚀 go-pugleaf

In <6shrbr$1m2$1@nntp1.ba.best.com> malch@malch.com (Malcolm Hoar) writes:

>IMO, thin-wire *can* work well for small networks. I wouldn't use
>if for more than a few nodes - troubleshooting is just too
>troublesome.

Why is this so?  The only reason for better troubleshooting that I have
heard described is that with 10BaseT you can easily isolate a node by
unplugging its wire.

But with Thinnet you can easily isolate a node by unplugging its
T-connector.  The only difference is that with 10BaseT you cao do this
while standing near the hub, and with Thinnet you have to be standing
near the node.  Which doesn't seem to be that big a deal -- you are
already wandering around checking everything anyway.

The only real advantages of 10BaseT that I see are that the wiring is
easily pulled through conduit and that it's easy to make everything
terminate in a single closet, so you have to walk less.  Which reasoning
makes sense if you have a low-traffic network with hundreds of nodes on
the same 10 Mbps segment.  But with contemporary machines you can only
put a few on the same 10Mbps segment before you max out the bandwidth, so
you need a switch anyway.  So I don't see a realistic scenario where you
have hundreds of feet of coax that is impossible to trace.  More likely
you have 50 feet of coax terminating at a switch, which gives you back
the star configuration that 10BaseT users like.

My guess is that everybody is remembering the old days when a single 10
Mbps segment was enough for a 1000-employee company, with low-power
machines barely using any Ethernet bandwidth.  In those days it was
definitely possible to have a single Thinnet cable (joined with many
T-connectors, of course) winding its way through the whole company, and
perhaps people are remembering how hard it was to isolate pieces of that
long cable.

Now if you are comparing 100BaseTX with Thinnet it's a different story.
100BaseTX wins of course, since it's much faster.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@spams.r.us.com>