External Hard Drives On Hub

[rwinegar]

I am getting a new computer that has fewer USB ports than my previous computer. As such I will be forced to use a USB hub. Will the performance of my external hard drives be affected if I connect them to a hub? I am worried that they might be slowed down. I rarely have more than one turned on at time.

Will there be any problems with a program like Acronis True Image detecting the external drives through the hub? Would the hub slow the cloning process using such a program?

[TrueGreen]

You might be better off getting more usb ports installed (assuming it's a PC). I have 6 usb ports (4 in back and 2 in front) and wish I had even more. I think a hub will work, but it may be slow and there may be other problems with them. Wait for advice from others that are more knowledgeable.

[puterfixer]

Remember that even internal ports do use a built-in hub. For example, it is typical for a laptop or desktop to have several USB Host Controllers, each with its own USB Root Hub with 2 ports. So having an external USB hub is not that big deal. Even for external hard drives, the PC would communicate in bursts with the cache memory on each of them, then wait for the platters to physically read/write the data.

If you really want performance, then get a SATA controller with eSATA ports and hot-swap capability, and external hard drives with eSATA ports. Connect the drives externally and they will work natively, as fast if they were internal.

What matters for an external USB hub is the electrical power it can supply to connected peripherals. You will probably need to get a powered USB hub, or even independent power supplies for the hard drives, otherwise they may not get enough juice from the PC/laptop to power on. There's a standard limit of the power that can be delivered through USB wires and can be supplied on a USB port by the PC or laptop, so an external power supply is needed for devices with moving parts or other high energy demands.

[rwinegar]

WOW!! Puterfixer - send me a blank check and I will buy the hardware you suggest. I already have a $25 powered USB 2.0 hub that I planned to use on this new PC (Dell XPS 630). All I wanted to know is if the external hard drives performance would be compromised connected to the hub. The only purpose the hard drives serve is as cloned backups in the event of trouble.

[jmtjet]

You could always install an USB 2.0 PCI expansion card that will give you 4 additional fast USB connection ports.

[rwinegar]

This is all too typical of these types of forums. I ask a simple question that gets no direct responses. Instead I get all kinds of unsolicited advice that I did not ask for. I know I can install a PCI card. That's not what I asked.

[Train]

If that is a powered hub, you might be alright. Myself. well I gave up on usb hdds some time ago and use internal enclosures.
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...DD-Accessories

But I have to say that over the years, we have had a lot of folks post with problems using hubs and hdds like that.

A point about the use of pci nics. XP does have drivers for some of them, but the very well could be out of date and may not work very well. Or drive to a hair pulling contest because of the blue screens errors. Just something to watch out for.

[photolady]

I have to agree with Train. Unless the hub has it's own power, it's chancy using on an external harddrive. Case in Point, some printers won't even work if they're on a USB hub.

[puterfixer]

USB storage is slower than internal drives, this is a fact. Having several drives connected through a hub shouldn't significantly impact the performance, but I've seen some instances in which performance was specifically tied to the particular kind of USB controller in the PC/laptop and in the external drive case. Some are slow (and you can't do much else with the PC while you're transferring files), others aren't. No easy way to tell other than testing whatever combination you have.

For backups, a powered hub should work just fine. Schedule a job to backup everything on your PC on the external drives during the night and you won't notice any problem. Also, you don't need to squeeze the last bit of performance out of external storage used for music or videos which you only access occasionally.

The one way I found to get away from the slowness of the USB was to use the hard drive's native SATA interface connected directly to the PC's motherboard, or to a laptop through an external CardBus/PCI Express controller. I'm a technology early adopter, so I started this back when IDE (parallel ATA) still ruled the market and anything eSATA was fairly expensive. But now, SATA gives you enough advantages to consider avoiding any USB-only hard drives:

• the average motherboard has enough SATA headers to connect a few internal drives plus a few external ones;
• SATA drives are getting cheaper and bigger;
• the native interface is fastest way to connect a hard drive to a motherboard, any conversion through FireWire or USB will only slow it down;
• SATA is a 1:1 communication instead of the shared bus architecture of USB;
• eSATA plugs on motherboards are becoming more common, eSATA external boxes are cheap.

I no longer buy any external storage which doesn't come with an eSATA connector. Here's a checklist:

• one or more eSATA backplates like this, to provide an external eSATA connector for each available SATA header on the motherboard;
• for laptops, an external controller is needed, such as this CardBus adapter for older laptop models, or this ExpressCard adapter for newer models;
• external enclosures for SATA hard drives, like this for 3.5" drives, or this for 2.5" (laptop-sized) drives, they usually come with eSATA cable to connect to the backplate above and with power adapters;
• SATA hard drives, whatever you fancy. 500GB is the sweet spot of cost per gigabyte in desktop drives, 160 or 250GB is similar for the laptop drives (although you get less storage space for the same price, but in a compact size).

Even if I was to get a NAS for my network, I'd still look for one which came with eSATA ports as well, like this one. USB is indeed universal, but when better performance is possible and affordable, and when you're buying hardware that you want to use for at least a few years, it doesn't make sense to lock yourself out of it by buying external storage ONLY with USB connectors.

[rwinegar]

Thanks everybody.

[SuperSparks]

I've used USB external drives via a powered hub and plugged directly into the PC, and I have never noticed the slightest difference in performance either way. There certainly shouldn't be an difference.