Should I use a hub or switch?

I have five computers, three Win2k Pro SP2 desktops and two WinXP Home Edition laptops. One of the desktops is connected to the Internet through a USB port to a satellite modem. I want to connect the other computers to this one to create a workgroup and especially to share the Internet connection. I know that I can enable the Internet connection feature on the computer connected to the Internet, and once that feature is enabled, my host computer will act like a router. But my question is: What type of hardware device do you recommend for me to use to connect the other computers -- a hub or a switch? I am pretty new at this, so any suggestions or advice will be greatly appreciated.
Either a hub or a switch will work fine, and with five computers, you probably won't see a performance difference. I don' know that you can even buy a hub anymore because switches are so cheap nowadays. If you have a hub lying around, use that. Otherwise, I would buy a switch.

This was first published in July 2003

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