USB card v HUB

[Clive]

I have a USB 2 4 port card in my PC. Attached to this I have a 7 port Belkin
USB 2 hub.

Attached to the hub I have a Freecom usb2 hard disk. Speed seems ok, but
would I be better plugging the Hard disk directly into the USB card?
Thanks

Clive

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a USB 2 4 port card in my PC. Attached to this I have a 7 port
Belkin USB 2 hub.

Attached to the hub I have a Freecom usb2 hard disk. Speed seems ok,
but would I be better plugging the Hard disk directly into the USB card?

Its unlikely to make much difference, but you can test it easily by timing
the copy of a large file from that drive to the other drive etc with both configs.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have a USB 2 4 port card in my PC. Attached to this I have a 7 port Belkin
USB 2 hub.

Attached to the hub I have a Freecom usb2 hard disk. Speed seems ok, but
would I be better plugging the Hard disk directly into the USB card?
Thanks

I think the slow thing is the USB driver and host interface. A hub
should not make that much difference. And if you are satisfied, then
keep it that way.

However if you are concerned, then get a disk benchmark and try it out.

Arno

 

[AndyM]

I have a USB 2 4 port card in my PC. Attached to this I have a 7 port Belkin
USB 2 hub.

Attached to the hub I have a Freecom usb2 hard disk. Speed seems ok, but
would I be better plugging the Hard disk directly into the USB card?
Thanks

Clive

I have the exact same hub and I have experimented with up to 3 Seagate
drives attached to it. For a single drive attached to the hub like
yours, no noticeable performance difference than if it were attached
directly to the onboard USB 2.0 port. Where it gets ugly quick is when
you have 2 or more drives attached and more than 1 are being accessed
at the same time. i.e. reading a .VOB file from one to burn it to a
DVD while ripping another DVD and saving it to the other attached
drive. It gets dog slow very quickly. I have since converted over to
firewire enclosures for my external drives. They can be daisy-chained
and there is no noticeable performance hit when 2 more drives on a
single chain are being accessed at the same time, due to the "peer to
peer" architecture inherent with firewire. There's a good write-up on
the pros and cons of each here:
http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm.

Andy M

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have the exact same hub and I have experimented with up to 3 Seagate
drives attached to it. For a single drive attached to the hub like
yours, no noticeable performance difference than if it were attached
directly to the onboard USB 2.0 port. Where it gets ugly quick is when
you have 2 or more drives attached and more than 1 are being accessed
at the same time. i.e. reading a .VOB file from one to burn it to a
DVD while ripping another DVD and saving it to the other attached
drive. It gets dog slow very quickly. I have since converted over to
firewire enclosures for my external drives.

They can be daisy-chained

Which means that they have a hub inside.

and there is no noticeable performance hit when 2 more drives on a
single chain are being accessed at the same time,

That's bloody nonsense.
Everything that shares a channel will have to share the available bandwidth.

due to the "peer to peer" architecture inherent with firewire.

So has USB.

There's a good write-up on the pros and cons of each here:

There is very little there, actually.

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm.

Oh goodie, a sample of one.

 

[Rod Speed]

Which means that they have a hub inside.

Nope, firewire and USB are quite different architectures/structures.

That's bloody nonsense.
Nope.

Everything that shares a channel will have to share the available bandwidth.

Yes, but when the PC doesnt use them at that same time...

So has USB.

No it doesnt. You cant network two PCs with standard USB, you can with firewire.

There is very little there, actually.

Oh goodie, a sample of one.

There's plenty more that say the same thing.