I am setting up a network and wanted to understand why for example I would need to subnet my network. I understand with subnetting I get a many more networks and less hosts but is there a reason or benefit to why I should do it.

Thanks

Subnets limit the amount of traffic across a network. With todays hardware (switches and high bandwidth nics), you can add more and more systems. It is not uncommon fo a 22 bit network (1022 hosts) to opeate efficiantly. Its a bit of a loaded questions depending on the amount of systems you are going to have, network infrastructre (switches) and applications you are going to run.
In a nutshell, if yuo are running les than 250 systems, uses a 24 bit mask and you will be fine.

A more technical factor is, it is used to decide which packets are sent to a router or gateway.

cachemonet,

Thanks. Would limiting traffic be the only reason or possibly getting more value out of your range of IP addresses? What other reasons would I have to subnet? I would appreciate it if you could provide examples. Thanks

Can anyone help? Thanks

Subnetting creates seperate broadcast domains. So they're completely different LANs. To pass data from one to the other you have to route between them. A simple switching hub (with no VLAN support) only creates seperate collision domains. The network can still become saturated with broadcast traffic.

Crito,

Thanks for your reply but I don't see why one would one to subnet? I understand they create separate LANs'.

I didn't quite understand what you meant by 'A simple switching hub (with no VLAN support) only creates seperate collision domains. The network can still become saturated with broadcast traffic.'

Can anyone help? Thanks