USB Hubs

[GDR]

Hi


I was and am sniffing around on the internet to find a solution we've probably all already encountered.


"Enough ports on the USB hub".


Well, to tell you, you can find internal and external hubs with a maximum of 7 ports (which in most cases isn't even sufficient).

Through the sniffing, I've found a site that produces "16" ports USB hubs (2.0) :o

Here's the link: http://www.jpcentury.com/pro_con.aspx?id=P_00000008

Unfortunately I couldn't find a price for it.


Just wanted to share this info.;)

Regards,

[xlonglife]

SynchroTech do a 13 port hub for $35

http://www.synchrotech.com/product-usb/hub_03_usb_13-port.html

Steve

[Jackpilot]

Daisy chaining hubs allows basically all you need.

[Crescent]

Is there any down side to using one of these? I didn't even know they existed til I saw this. Thanks for posting it.

[xlonglife]

The only downside is having yet another box plugged into the mains

It means you can limit the number of cables going to the PC to one:)

They (in general) work really well


Steve

[airbus319]

There is a downside to using large quantity hubs but this is only a problem if you have it plugged into a usb 1 Port as the more devices you connect to your hub the more chance you will have of max-ing out the bandwidth of the usb bus, usb 2 on the other hand is 20 times faster than usb 1 so there shouldnt be an issue.

For people like myself who use both old and new hardware this is worth bearing in mind

David.

[Jackpilot]

David
What do U mean by port1 and 2?
Sorry if it is obvious..not to me (lol)
Jack

[airbus319]

Sorry USB 1.0 was the initial specification when the technology was released it operates at a speed of roughly 20mbps, the technology was improved about 3 years ago and the new USB 2.0 operates at a speed of roughly 400 mbps.

hope this clears things up, what I was trying to say is if you connect loads of devices to a USB1.0 port you may suffer from performance issue but a USB 2.0 port should run shedloads of them with no major bandwidth issues.

regards

David.

[Jackpilot]

Very clear..thanks
So besides year of computer , is there a way to know if it is a 20 or a 400?

[airbus319]

yes there are a couple of tell tale signs and one test you can do

Have a look at the outside of the PC, there may be a label saying USB2.0
Have a look in the USB controllers section in Device manager it may have the devices labled as 2.0 or 1.0
Have a look in the PC's Bios chances are there will be an option there to disble the usb controller and it sometimes mentions the sppeds

and finally if all else fails copy a 1gb file or files to a usb device such as a memory stick or hard disk drive, usb 2.0 should take about a minute to copy that amount of data USB 1.0 will take roughly 20 times that, this is slightly dependant on hard disk drive speeds but still is reasonably accurate.

David.

[Rodney]

Sorry USB 1.0 was the initial specification when the technology was released it operates at a speed of roughly 20mbps, the technology was improved about 3 years ago and the new USB 2.0 operates at a speed of roughly 400 mbps.


While that is what they hoped to achieve, you must realize this is based on moving a single instance of raw data. What comes into play is how many devices are trying to talk over it. 12 to 40 mbps is more the norm.

[airbus319]

while were on the topic, it may be worthwhile reading this and bearing it in mind for the future especially as two computers can be networked using a modified usb cable, I can think of several applications for that kind of setup in the fs world.

USB 3.0
On September 18, 2007, Pat Gelsinger demonstrated USB 3.0 at the Intel Developer Forum. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced on November 17, 2008, that version 1.0 of the specification has been completed and is transitioned to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the managing body of USB specifications.[31] This move effectively opens the spec to hardware developers for implementation in future products.

A new major feature is the SuperSpeed bus, which increases the maximum transfer rate to 5.0 Gbit/s. [32]

USB 3.0 receptacles are compatible with USB 2.0 device plugs for the respective physical form factors. However, only USB 3.0 Standard-B receptacles can accept USB 3.0 Standard-B device plugs.

The protocol uses Dual-simplex, over four additional wires, differential signaling separate from USB 2.0 signaling (thus six wires total) to achieve the full Superspeed 5.0 Gbit/s[33]

The protocol supports full-duplex data transfers.[34] In addition, data transaction is based on asynchronous traffic flow with explicitly routed packet traffic, instead of the polled broadcast packet traffic in USB 2.0. A streams mode is added for bulk transfer mode. SuperSpeed protocol also supports continuous burst transfers.

New power management features include support of idle, sleep and suspend states[33], as well as link and function-level power management.

Maximum bus power is increased to 150mA per unit load (+50% over USB 2.0). An unconfigured device can still draw only 1 unit load, but a configured device can draw up to 6 unit loads (900mA, an 80% increase over USB 2.0). Minimum device operating voltage is dropped from 4.4V to 4V.[33]

USB 3.0 does not define cable assembly lengths, except that it can be of any length as long as it meets all the requirements defined in the specification. However, electronicdesign.com estimated cables will be limited to 3 m at full speed.[16]

The technology is similar to PCI Express 2.0 (5-Gbit/s). It uses 8B10B encoding, linear feedback shift register (LFSR) scrambling for data, spread spectrum. It forces receivers to use low frequency periodic signaling (LFPS), dynamic equalization, and training sequences to ensure fast signal locking.

Availability

USB 3.0 devices supporting SuperSpeed bus are expected to be available in commercial controllers in the first half of 2010. However it will not be until the second half of 2010 when they become seen on products other than computers. Consumer products are expected to become available in 2010.[35]

Windows 7 and Linux drivers are under development but no public releases have been made available as of February 2009

[Mr. Midnight]

ITS A brando 16 hub, and its about 150.00.

im not for sure if i want to spend that much , but who knows.

........................Robert