difference between hubs and switches explained at HomeNetHelp

Basic:

A 10/100 Ethernet switch can be considered a faster version of a 10/100 Ethernet hub.  Recently switches have come down so far is price that they are readily accessible to consumers.   

Ethernet switches allow your Ethernet cards to operate in Full Duplex mode instead of Half Duplex.  Full Duplex means that you can be sending and receiving data at the same time. Switches also route traffic directly between ports instead of broadcasting trfaffic across all ports.  This basicly means that each port on a switch gets dedicated bandwidth instead of shared bandwidth.  When transfering large files betwen multiple computers, this can make a big difference in how well your lan operates.

Consumer level switches now run only about 20% more than hubs making them a great deal for the speed.  Switches are also being incorporated into many of the popular DSL / Cable modem routers being manufactured.  I would not be surprised to see some network gear manufacturers stop producing consumer level hubs in the next year or so.

Unmanaged vs Managed

Manages hubs are usuialy not for the home.  They have special networking computers built into them that do all sorts of things you will probably never need in your home or small office environment.  They are also very expensive.

Unmanaged hubs and switches are simple devices that let your Ethernet devices talk to each other.