USB 3 Hub Tutorial Needed!

[john parker]

I am looking for a USB 3 hub for my early 2015 Macbook Air. And it turns out I am pretty ignorant on the subject of USB ports and requirements. Tried YouTube for a tutorial but most of them assume I know a lot more than I do. Tried a Mac formum with similar results.

I am looking for a hub from which I could use to run my HP printer (guess that means data only since the printer has its own power source), which I could use my WD My Passport portable hard drive, and which I could use for USB thumb drives. Do I need a "power" hub or a non-power hub? What hubs would you recommend? I have read of some shutting down the drives, messing up data, and all kinds of things (granted I mostly look at the "one-star" comments). I am not looking for something big or fancy; probably would never need more than four ports.

Thanks!

 

[Atlantic59]

I'll try to be brief.

First, you should usually ignore customer reviews on web shopping sites, especially one-star reviews. Most users are not that knowledgeable technically, or worse know a lot of things that are not true.

You are better off with a powered hub, generally. That's because there is a current limit on the power supplied by the computer over USB 3. For example, a hard drive plus charging a mobile phone could put you over the limit, easily. In that case, your devices would not work on an unpowered hub.

Most powered hubs can also run without external power if your devices don't require much power. For example, you just want to plug in a pair of memory sticks, you don't need external power.

USB devices going into sleep mode; this is not typically controlled by the hub. There are settings in external drives and computers that control this behavior, which is intended to save power and wear and tear on your hard drives. It is not a flaw.

Recommendations, I am not up-to-date on that right now, sorry.