I’ve just inherited a network that seems to have been growing organically for the last few years. It started with one network hub and now has a couple more daisy-chained into it. As you can imagine, it’s now running like a dog, especially when someone tries copying large files from one machine to another. We don’t really have much budget, what’s the best way to fix it?

As you probably suspect, the reason behind the poor performance it the network setup you’re running on. Daisy-chaining hubs will work to an extent, but it’s a pretty inefficient way to run a network and you’ll see problems during sustained bursts of network activity, just like when you copy a file.

The best way to solve the problem is to get some proper network equipment, just like the Cisco SR224G 24-port 10/100 2-port Gigabit Switch + 2 miniGBIC currently on sale from Buy.com at $69.99. I’m sure your budget can stretch to that. And what do you get for your money? You get twenty-four 10/100 ports wire up your workstations, while the integrated 10/100/1000 ports or mini Gigabit Interface Converter (mini-GBIC) ports connect to your servers or backbone at Gigabit speeds. You may not have a network backbone at this point, but if your network grows any larger you’ll need to undergo a proper design exercise for it.

In the meantime, check out the switch. You’ll find a massive increase in the performance of your network.