usb hubs are crapous

[salaryman]

Like many people, I've started assembling a group of external usb hard
drives on my system, to increase capacity without having to open up the
case and replace the old hard drive. I used only powered 2.0 usb hubs,
through a 2.0 usb port and was certain that all was well because 2.0 usb has
supposed to be a high speed data transfer deal. 480 mb/s supposedly.
I started to look into this when I had trouble hooking up a new external HD.
I used a little utility called HDtach to analyze HD read speeds. What a
shock. When I ran the tests on the same HD, first connected directly to the
computer and then through a 2.0 powered hub. Did this with three different
external HD's and with three different manufactures 2.0 hubs, in different
combinations. All measurements were virtually identical, with the read
scores for through the hubs at basically 1 mb/s and directly connected to
the computer at 18 mb/s. Did this a dozen times in a bunch of different
connection and mostly always got the same sort of numbers.
Well, this is totally bogus. These hubs, advertised as high throughput
devices, are actually data plugs. Why use these expensive 2.0 hubs when
there performance is so lousy? Might as well use old 1.1 hubs!
Is this a universal experience?, do I need to download some sort of secret
hidden software to make these hubs perform decently? Does everyone who uses
these 2.0 hubs just grit their teeth and put up with such stink performance?
Nuts, we might as well go back to using the serial ports for data transfer!

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

Like many people, I've started assembling a group of external usb hard
drives on my system, to increase capacity without having to open up the
case and replace the old hard drive.

snip

It is really difficult to answer a question from someone who buys hubs
and external HDDs in preference to either replacing the existing HDD
with a larger one or, the best solution, installing a second HDD.

HDDs are cheap and installing one is simple, with any amount of
guidance posted.

 

[Michael C]

snip

It is really difficult to answer a question from someone who buys hubs
and external HDDs in preference to either replacing the existing HDD
with a larger one or, the best solution, installing a second HDD.

HDDs are cheap and installing one is simple, with any amount of
guidance posted.

It's quite a valid question tho. I'd be interested to know whether it's the
particular hub or if all hubs are the same. It's probably best to add extra
USB ports to the computer, most motherboards have spares that just need a
backshell.

Michael

 

[jameshanley39]

Like many people, I've started assembling a group of external usb hard
drives on my system, to increase capacity without having to open up the
case and replace the old hard drive. I used only powered 2.0 usb hubs,
through a 2.0 usb port and was certain that all was well because 2.0 usb has
supposed to be a high speed data transfer deal. 480 mb/s supposedly.
I started to look into this when I had trouble hooking up a new external HD.
I used a little utility called HDtach to analyze HD read speeds. What a
shock. When I ran the tests on the same HD, first connected directly to the
computer and then through a 2.0 powered hub. Did this with three different
external HD's and with three different manufactures 2.0 hubs, in different
combinations. All measurements were virtually identical, with the read
scores for through the hubs at basically 1 mb/s and directly connected to
the computer at 18 mb/s. Did this a dozen times in a bunch of different
connection and mostly always got the same sort of numbers.
Well, this is totally bogus. These hubs, advertised as high throughput
devices, are actually data plugs. Why use these expensive 2.0 hubs when
there performance is so lousy? Might as well use old 1.1 hubs!
Is this a universal experience?, do I need to download some sort of secret
hidden software to make these hubs perform decently? Does everyone who uses
these 2.0 hubs just grit their teeth and put up with such stink performance?
Nuts, we might as well go back to using the serial ports for data transfer!

I even find USB devices sometimes don't give me fast speeds even when
plugged into USB2 ports.

Mb=megabit MB=megabyte
USB2 is 480Mb is 480 megabits = 12 Megabytes.
HDTach would give speed in MBytes i'm sure.
But your getting slow speeds, and really slow hub speeds. USB1 hubs are
12Mb=1.8MB Your speed of 1Mb is a joke!

Anyhow. You're going about this the wrong way. I commend you for not
wanting to open up the comp to put a new HDD in. Let me suggest
something.

Internal HDDs with a USB2-IDE adaptor It is much cheaper!
You still have the hub issue though.

Also, you might be able to find a computer case with HDD rails. So HDDs
can slide in and out. Antec do a case like that. Thoguh it's only any
use if all your comps are that model of case. And Antec case are
expensive. And you may not like the rest of the case.

You could buy a load of internal HDDs, screw (or slide) them all in.
That is a one-off. Then all you have to do is plug the cables into the
back of them. If you had a nice case then it might not be such a
nuisance.

 

[Michael C]

there performance is so lousy? Might as well use old 1.1 hubs!
Is this a universal experience?, do I need to download some sort of secret
hidden software to make these hubs perform decently? Does everyone who
uses
these 2.0 hubs just grit their teeth and put up with such stink
performance?
Nuts, we might as well go back to using the serial ports for data
transfer!

Hi salaryman,

I got your other post but for some reason can't find it. I don't have any
usb2 hubs to test but I have got a USB 2 extention cable that works as an
active hub and it works at pretty much the same speed as having the hdd
plugged directly into the PC. I believe it has a chip in it the receives the
signal and retransmits it so it can get over 5 metres but I'm not sure how
it compares to a hub.

Michael