USB 3.0 hub/charger questions

[firebirdude]

Pardon if this is a dumb question, but I guess I'm unsure how a hub like this one will work.
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerI...01000026&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+3.0+hub+charging
It connects to the computer via one USB cord, which is apparently just plugs into a USB 3.0 port on your PC. So how can I use seven USB 3.0 devices all at the same time through one USB port on the PC? Does each drive show up as a different drive letter? Does it just slow all the transfer speeds down? It would have to, right? So copying data from drive 1 onto drive 2, while also copying drive 3 to drive 4, while also copying drive 5 onto drive 6..... it would all slow to a crawl (by USB 3.0 standards)? Surely plugging my seven devices into seven separate USB ports on the computer would yield better results?

 

[corkyg]

Not necessarily. The advantage of the powered hub is that it takes the burden of powering those 7 devices away from the PC's PSU. The USB data flow is unchanged. I'm running a USB hub with 13 ports and 10 devices. There's no degradation in speed at all.

 

[firebirdude]

Not necessarily. The advantage of the powered hub is that it takes the burden of powering those 7 devices away from the PC's PSU. The USB data flow is unchanged. I'm running a USB hub with 13 ports and 10 devices. There's no degradation in speed at all.

Does each connected storage drive show up with it's own drive letter?

 

[razel]

Does each connected storage drive show up with it's own drive letter?

Yes, and it's not a dumb question. Your question sounded genuine.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Any flash drive or spinning hard drive is going to be way slower than the USB bus anyway, so piling a bunch of them onto the same USB controller isn't a big deal. In most cases, you're only going to be accessing 2-3 of them at a time anyway. But OP is right - theoretically, yeah, you can get bottlenecked there. It's just not a problem in the real world.

The powered hub is a nice thing. I use mine to charge my phone, usually.

 

[Paperdoc]

dave_the_nerd is quite right, as are the others. In OP's hypothetical scenario, trying to use six HDD units simultaneously on that Hub might show a slower rate on each drive. But in the real world, almost nobody would do that. Two or three at once, MAYBE. I'm intrigued with OP's hypothetical alternative - seven separate USB3 ports on the host computer. I have never seen any machine with that many USB3 ports.

 

[VirtualLarry]

dave_the_nerd is quite right, as are the others. In OP's hypothetical scenario, trying to use six HDD units simultaneously on that Hub might show a slower rate on each drive. But in the real world, almost nobody would do that. Two or three at once, MAYBE. I'm intrigued with OP's hypothetical alternative - seven separate USB3 ports on the host computer. I have never seen any machine with that many USB3 ports.

I'm not even sure that it would help to plug all of the drive's in the PC's (rear) USB port array. Reason being, there are only so many "USB Host Controllers" on the board, and generally there are fewer controllers, than "USB Root Hubs". Meaning, multiple USB ports on the back of the PC share bandwidth on a controller, which really isn't much different than different drives all plugged into a USB external Hub, sharing a USB Port that they are plugged into in the PC.

 

[corkyg]

There is a measurable difference in power draw from the system PSU.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm not even sure that it would help to plug all of the drive's in the PC's (rear) USB port array. Reason being, there are only so many "USB Host Controllers" on the board, and generally there are fewer controllers, than "USB Root Hubs". Meaning, multiple USB ports on the back of the PC share bandwidth on a controller, which really isn't much different than different drives all plugged into a USB external Hub, sharing a USB Port that they are plugged into in the PC.

This is true.

You'd presumably want to add expansion cards with more USB Host Controllers.

Back in the dark ages (USB 1.1) I had a quad-controller PCI card for precisely this reason.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Back in the dark ages (USB 1.1) I had a quad-controller PCI card for precisely this reason.

Those still exist for USB3.

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adap...-Card-4-Dedicated-Channels-4-Port~PEXUSB3S44V

But I fail to see much of a practical use for it, outside running multiple SSDs off the card. A standard USB3 controller is plenty capable of running multiple (~4) HDDs, and if it becomes a problem with bandwidth there is always 10Gbit USB 3.1...

...but by then you should be looking at some other solution anyway...

 

[sdifox]

I have a dozen external HDD :awe:

Mind you there isn't much simultaneous access since these are media drives so multiple drive to one host is not a big deal.