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www.thinkdigit.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-18341.html
Posted by crouse
A switch connects one point to another in a network temporarily by turning it on and off as necessary. It works at layer 2, with some intelligence (there are also some layer 3 switches, that essentially have routing capabilities).
A bridge connects one point to another in a network. It works at layer 1 and 2 of the OSI model. It only connects two segments of the network.
Posted by sagitraz
Switches support half and full duplex, bridges only half duplex.
Posted by waqqas1
Posted by lijojhon
Switches use ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) chips. ASICs are specialized processors designed to do one thing—in this case, switch frames. Depending on the model of switch, the speed difference can be astounding: A bridge typically switches around 50,000 frames per second, whereas a lowly 2950 switch can move an average of 12 million frames per second. (This, of course, depends on the frame size.) A big switch, such as the Catalyst 6500 series, could do 10 times that, depending on the hardware configuration.
Switches also tend to have many more ports than bridges; a bridge by definition has at least two ports, and they didn't get much bigger than 16 ports. Switches can have hundreds of ports if you buy the appropriate expansion modules.
Other differences include the following:
• Switches support half and full duplex, bridges only half duplex.
• Switches support different port speeds (10 and 100Mbs, for example), but a bridge's ports must all be the same speed.
• Switches support multiple VLANs and an instance of Spanning Tree for every VLAN.
Posted by nicholsonfenix
episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/469092836/m/138091881 - 95k
Posted by crouse
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