Imaging that you are troubleshotting VoIP trafic, like RTP, for example, and you don't what to mess with QoS and stuff, you just want to "watch"???
My way? I connect my powerfull cisco catalyst, and do the work... no problem...Leave my powerfull switch be connect to my laptop one hour, collecting data, for analysis. No problem for me.
But, in my experience, the cisco catalyst became my new friend, my new heavy friend...
There are some troubleshooting that i could do with a small piece of hardware... so my topic is only about one subject, if you have an electric schema, I appreciate for suggestion, if not, i don't need to bother, and send anwsers like "why can't i use an hub", "it's spy work??"... man i'm network guy and i know exactly what i'm talking about...
This topic was only about that... if i can make one by my self, cool, if not, well i need to buy a light switch, (for example the HP that you send me).
So if you have the tecnologie for do a spy work (no interference on the network) why use a hub??? Man, hubs sucks.... hub is a stupid device... no mac table, no nothing... if you connect an hub in ten switchs network with spanning tree... you have a big mess...
Thanks,
Ricardo