USB hub and Speed
 

hi guys,

Aluminum iMac is quite a nice design but USB ports are not easy to reach. Besides i have many usb devices so i bought an normal USB hub. You plugged in and has 4 extra usb ports. I noticed that the data speed drops dramatically. 600 Mb what used to be transfered in 3 minutes now it is 40 minutes!

The other idea about the Hub is that I do not like to insert usb and remove it all the time, the connection might wear out with the time.

Is any USB hub that will keep the same speed the the rear Mac USB has?

Any idea?

Cheers,
Sebastian

If you've got one device that is USB 1.1, the whole chain will drop to USB 1.1 speeds. That's 12mbps max.

Yes, please tell us more about the USB hub, eg. is it mains-powered or bus-powered?

The USB Hub was 2.0, 480 Mbp but bus-powered. Could the last thing be the reason for the slow speed?

The model will be something like the last column: CFLEXHUB

http://www.conceptronic.net/site/des...id=10&gid=1020

I've got one of these.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=158910

It's mains powered, my iMac is almost the same as yours but White pre Alu, my four Sata external hard drives are connected to the hub and transfer speeds are fine for me.

Fastmac, this USB Hub seems pretty good. Maybe mine was slow because it was not auto powered. I will check if Belkin sells in Spain.

By the way, how long does it takes you to transfer 600 Mb to your external HD? How can i know if my external HD are SATA as well?

Thanks

To transfer 600mb takes around 25 to 35 minutes depending if one file or many. My hard drives are all in one large (powered and cooled) case (like half height PC tower) it came in kit form, the hard drives are SATA 1Tb x 4 (bought separately) and there are two bridge boards so two drives = one USB2 connection.
For you to know if you have SATA you need to look at the specs from where you bought it.

Thanks for the info Jim.

Still 25 to 35 minutes sounds a long time to me. I usually copy a 700 Mb from my Mac to my external HD in less than 5 minutes. But no USB Hub between them. So I dunno why there is that much difference in time. I have an standard 1 Tb Lacie, USB.

Maybe if any connection goes through a USB HUB the transfer rate changes quite a lot no matter if the Hub is auto powered or not. By the way your model says Hi-Speed, i thought it was a different transfer rate.

Cheers,
S

What bottle necks mine is the bridge between hub and two hard drives, I could have used four bridge boards but that would mean four USB cables. Plus I'm usually copying to two drives at the same time. USB2 is called Hi-Speed but I don't know why because Firewire 800 knocks USB2 sideways just a shame we never got FW800 ports on our Macs.

Apple covers its bases by stating that USB is "variable speed". Jim is right on when he says how many files affect transfer speed.

I have a Targus 7-port powered USB2 hub. It transfers large amounts of data in reasonable time but I couldn't give you exact figures at this time. The Targus has two "high powered" ports that deliver 1000 mA for devices like external hard drives.

I also have a Cyberpower battery-powered 4-port USB2 hub, and it is quicker than the Targus. My guess - and it is no more than that - is that the difference is in the controlling chip technology.

There are firewire hubs available should your external hard drive enclosure have that facility.

USB is generally slower, because it is 'host-based', and has a large CPU overhead. This allows for cheaper production of USB peripherals.

Firewire is 'peer-to-peer', and the hardware itself takes care of the processing, which makes it faster than USB. However, this means it costs more to produce Firewire peripherals.

USB is generally better for basic peripherals, but for any kind of data or multimedia intensive stuff, Firewire wins.
Read: http://www.directron.com/firewirevsusb.html

hi guys,

thanks for the tips and the info in general. My 3 external HD are USB so i kind of stuck with them for now. Maybe the next one will be Firewire, but for storing mp3 and films the USB is not a bad option. It is not a HD for work.

Anyhow, i was just trying to know if i can get a USB Hub which is at least as fast as my iMac connection to my external HD. That will be 5 minutes to 600 Mb and not 25 minutes.

I can only find Belkin in Spain...

Cheers,

Those who sell powered USB2 hubs generally advertise them as 480 Mbps, which is what the motherboard port speed is also. I'm almost sure though that there's some speed difference (drop) simply because a cable is being used for connectivity with a USB2 hub.

With the EU etc, can you not import stuff readily into Spain? Do you have online price referrers like this www.pricespy.co.nz where you can shop for the best deals of the brand that you want?

Guys I noticed an error in my speed calc above, for some reason I looked at 600Mb and registered 6GB which is my typical file size to transfer. Anyway here are some real time transfers.

file 600Mb copy from external = less than a minute.
Same file copy to external = aprox 1 minute.
file 7.86GB copy from external = 7 minutes.
Same file copy to external = aprox 12 Minutes.

My usual one file 7.9Gb to two externals = aprox 14 - 20 minutes.
NZ Belkin search
Hope that helps.

Yes hughvane, maybe you are right that if there is an in-between cable involved not matter what USB HUB i will get there will always be a noticeable speed delay.

Thanks for the info on the New Zealand web. I will check those prices.

Cheers,
Sebastian

ps: i dunno if you are a rugby fan coming from New Zealand, we have some pretty good kiwi stars playing in Europe right now. They are improving our game, like Carter.

very interesting article!

Thanks for sharing cwtnospam

I'm almost certain there'll be a price referrer in Spain, it's a successful marketing tactic. I buy regularly via PriceSpy here in NZ.

Yes, indeed I do follow rugby, the ABs having recently completed a successful tour of the UK. I played rugby myself until my early 20's. The powerful lure of big $$$ is getting people like Carter, Collins et al over to Europe to play club rugby. Hopefully it does improve the game skills of the clubs for which they play.

Thanks for the info Hughvane,

I will check on some retailer store, but Spain it is far from UK, which is far from the US regarding electronics and gadgets variety. I remember visiting the CompUSA in San Francisco, a huge warehouse store with various levels in which almost any imaginable gadget available you can find.

Cheers,
Sebastian

ps: regarding rugby, happy to have Carter playing for Perpignan in France, it was a delightful to see such great talent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by uzapuca (Post 508918) I remember visiting the CompUSA in San Francisco, a huge warehouse store with various levels in which almost any imaginable gadget available you can find.

A friend recently came home to NZ after a trip to the UK, returning via Dubai. He went to a massive department store there (cf. Robinsons in Singapore). Apparently just about anything was available, incl Mac computers and peripherals - and cheaply!!! Well, cheap compared with NZ, the US, UK and, I guess, Spain.

We're lucky in NZ that a free-market philosophy prevails. Besides, we're such a small nation that there are no industries to match and/or compete with what comes out of the Asian region and the US.

CompUSA went out of business some months ago. :(

They closed all of their stores, and sold their name to TigerDirect, who now operates their website.

It would be nice to have those kind of massive department store around here. I still don´t get it why the Asian market is considerable cheaper than Europe or the rest of the world.

Anyhow i don´t know where the iMac are made. I guess is China as everything else in the world. I don´t say that comment with disdain. I used to work in a Bikes Magazine Editorial Group. The largest and best brands of Bikes Helmets factory is of course, in China. Their technology is top class and they can produce the quality the brand client wants to pay. They produce helmets from 60 to 1000 $ dolllars.

I think because China manufactures the products, it is cheaper because there is no middle-man increasing the price.

Say there is "CompanyX", a cell phone company. It licenses some factory in China to make their handsets for $50 each. They make the handsets, ship it to the US, and "CompanyX" then sells it to distributors in bulk for $60 each. These distributors then sell it to retail stores for $70 each. The retail stores then sell it to you for $100. The price increases each time in order for the companies to make a profit.

I'm guessing there are less 'middle-men' selling and reselling good, so the price isn't raised as much.

I also think many things made in China is of pretty good quality. Of course, there's also the cheap-o 'crapgadgets' that come from there, too... But as they sometimes say, "You get what you paid for".

They do it by externalizing costs. China isn't yet feeling the true costs from pollution, for example. Those bills will come due, in time.