Question : Managed vs. Unmanaged Switch

I have a large WAN in a city to deal with.  There are six locations running through a VPN.  Most sites have between 15 and 24 devices.  All the sites are using an old 10Base-T hub.  The bottleneck should be obvious.  What I want to know is will there really be that much of a difference between putting an unmanaged auto-sensing switch in each location versus a managed on?  My budget for each switch is no more than $200.00.  Any suggestions?  Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I read that a switch can go on a VPN but not a VLAN - is this correct?

Answer : Managed vs. Unmanaged Switch

For your budget, you may be stuck with unmanaged switches.
No, switches don't "do" VPN, but managed switched "do" VLAN's.
This managed switch might fit your budget.
http://shopper.cnet.com/SRW224_24_Port_10_100_2_Port_Gigabit_Switch/4014-6432_9-30964455.html?q=

I highly recommend using managed vs unmanged. With a mangaged swith you can do VLAN's and you have a multitude of troubleshooting features at your (remote) fingertips...