LINK STATE

Link State protocols track the status and connection type of each link. Link state protocols know whether a link is up or down and how fast it is and calculate the time of completion. Link State protocols will take a path which has more hops, but that uses a faster medium over a path using a slower medium with fewer hops. Link state protocols require more processing power and memory because of their awareness of media types and other factors. Distance vector algorithms being simpler require simpler hardware.