'Finding' USB Drives Plugged into a Hub

[rjbinney]

Win 7, both 32 and 64 bit machines.

Have had cords dangling everywhere - I have 3 WD external drives, an 80MB, a 160MB, and a 2TB. I got tired of the cords dangling everywhere and bought a four-port hub.



When I plug the hub into my machine, it takes about 20 or 30 seconds before the first of the three drives appears, and about 90 seconds total for all three.

What up with that?

And what do I do to speed it up?

[kimsland]

Please contact Staples customer service team
http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/help/contact/index.html

I wouldn't put up with that delay!

[rthompson80819]

You have a lot plugged into that hub, and based on what you posted it's not a powered hub.  My first guess would be that you are exceeding the power limitations of the hub or the USB port it's plugged into.

I had a bad experience with a powered hub several years ago that only had a flash drive plugged into it and some thing shorted out and melted the hub and the flash drive.  Never figured out which one shorted out, and it wasn't worth the effort or money to figure it out.

Be careful how much stuff you plug into a hub, there are limitations.

[rjbinney]

It *IS* a powered hub, which is why I thought it was screwy. (Naturally, they're all powered drives, as well).

Of course, I bought this thing like eight weeks ago and took it out of the blister pack, and only installed it Monday night. So I'm sure Staples will be less than helpful! The joys of being on the road...

Is there a good alternative? That is, higher priced=better quality?

[patio]

Why not move one of the HDD's to an internal ? ?
Or do they all need to be accessed outside the PC ? ?

[kimsland]

Is there a good alternative? That is, higher priced=better quality?

I agree with rthompson80819, I've seen many USB multiport hubs breakdown (whatever the price)
I think if you want to use these things to save wires or other ports on your computer, you should just use them for Keyboard; Mouse and those types of low powered things.

The amount of power required for multiple hard drives plus the fact that they really should be using their own USB port (ideally in the back of your computer), leans me against a USB hub altogether.

[rjbinney]

And here I thought I was being clever.

(And, yeah, the whole point is to have external drives, not internal)

[kimsland]

You can still have external (USB) drives, plugged into the back of your computer, not a hub.

[BC_Programmer]

It's a problem with the hub.

I have three USB hubs. I filled each one with USB thumb drives and plugged them in. They all detected every drive within about 15 seconds. The one with 6 ports gave me the "USB Hub Power Exceeded" message when I tried to do that without being powered, though, which makes sense.

[kimsland]

Is the OP talking about thumb drives?

[patio]

Not if one is 2TB...i'd say no.

[kimsland]

Good point.
Therefore I say don't use a USB hub for this.

[BC_Programmer]

Is the OP talking about thumb drives?

Doesn't really matter. Thumb drives will draw more from the USB port than an external drive, by virtue of requiring that power, while External drives are just standard Hard drives in an enclosure, which require far more than 500mA of power and that is why they have their own power adapters. Plugging most enclosures/external drives in without them being powered on results in nothing.

unpowered USB hubs, I would agree. More trouble than they are worth. But when talking about a powered hub, if there are issues with the devices being detected it's an issue with the hub, not the computer or some intrinsic indescribable mystery about USB hubs. Your first reply still holds true. It is a problem with the product, not how it is being used.

[rjbinney]

So - bottom line: It should take as long for the drive to appear when plugged into the hub as when plugged directly into the machine, +- 1 second or so?

[BC_Programmer]

So - bottom line: It should take as long for the drive to appear when plugged into the hub as when plugged directly into the machine, +- 1 second or so?

well, cumulatively. If you have say 5 drives plugged in, and plug in the hub, usually the Computer will find them one after the other, rather than "all at once".

[Quantos]

Do you need to have all of the external drives connected at the same time?

[rjbinney]

Do you need to have all of the external drives connected at the same time?

That's why I got the hub.