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connect 2-3 external harddrives to 1 USB port

M

mr108

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2014
10
0
Hello,

I'm planning to buy a MacBook Air soon. My biggest hesitation is related to connectivity. I need to connect 2-3 external USB hard drives to one of the USB ports and to the second external keyboard and mouse + a USB modem.
Is that all possible to do?
 
I'd surmise if you use an externally powered hub and at least some externally powered disk drives, it's possible. If you run it all bus powered... I highly doubt it on the drive side. For keyboard/mouse, bus power is plenty.
 
Are there any other options if I don't have any powered external hard drives? I'm not familiar with Thunderbolt or FireWire ports but is it possible to connect to them 2-3 drives?
 
mr108 said:
Are there any other options if I don't have any powered external hard drives? I'm not familiar with Thunderbolt or FireWire ports but is it possible to connect to them 2-3 drives?
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt is designed to daisy chain devices, so yes you could connect several thunderbolt drives together.
 
mr108 said:
Are there any other options if I don't have any powered external hard drives? I'm not familiar with Thunderbolt or FireWire ports but is it possible to connect to them 2-3 drives?
Click to expand...

The person who replied to your post initially meant a powered USB hub.

You need to buy a USB hub that is powered, i.e., you plug it into your computer AND the wall. It has to have enough power to power 3 hard drives, but most powered hubs probably would.
 
26139 said:
You can daisy chain quite a few Thunderbolt devices: http://www.macworld.com/article/2146360/lab-tested-the-mac-pro-daisy-chain-challenge.html

Not sure if USB devices can be daisy chained at all, only Thunderbolt and FireWire (can someone confirm this?).
Click to expand...

You can definitely chain USB devices. Think about being able to plug a USB mouse into a USB keyboard, or monitors that have built-in USB ports, etc.

Hubs themselves are an example of chaining USB devices. A USB hub is a USB device.

But being able to chain stuff doesn't necessarily mean that all those things will get enough power to run. I don't know how much 2.5" portable external drives require but I'd be surprised if you could power two of them off a standard USB port, much less three.

For a powered hub it should be no problem, though.
 
Yes

motrek said:
You can definitely chain USB devices. Think about being able to plug a USB mouse into a USB keyboard, or monitors that have built-in USB ports, etc.

Hubs themselves are an example of chaining USB devices. A USB hub is a USB device.

But being able to chain stuff doesn't necessarily mean that all those things will get enough power to run. I don't know how much 2.5" portable external drives require but I'd be surprised if you could power two of them off a standard USB port, much less three.

For a powered hub it should be no problem, though.
Click to expand...

I should have said "you can't daisy-chain USB hub-powered devices, usually" instead of what I did.

For me, daisy chaining means plugging one HD into another, into another, into another, with only one connection to the computer.
 
I currently use a USB HDD dock with 4 HDD in it and a USB hub to connect an external keyboard and iPhone charge cable.

This is connected to a 13" MBA
 
26139 said:
I should have said "you can't daisy-chain USB hub-powered devices, usually" instead of what I did.

For me, daisy chaining means plugging one HD into another, into another, into another, with only one connection to the computer.
Click to expand...

You can. If you plug a USB mouse into a USB keyboard, they both get power. Obviously. The mouse doesn't run on magic.

The question at hand is, how MUCH power is available to all the devices on the bus. With USB 2.0 it's something like 2 watts. Enough for two keyboards/mice. Not enough for 2 hard drives, I don't think.
 
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