I need a usb hub with as many ports as possible - to accommodate a large number of external hard drives

[wfriedwald]

I need a usb hub with as many ports as possible - to accommodate a large number of external hard drives.

Right now I have two separate hubs attached, each has 16 ports.

Does anyone know if there's some device out there that can accommodate more than that?

I wonder what the biggest hub device is ? the one with the largest number of ports?

grateful for any suggestions / feedback.

Thank you as always!

w

 

[Fishrrman]

I just have to ask:
Why would anyone need to have more than 30+/- drives connected at one time?
What is ON them?

(I realize running a server farm or something along that line would require it)

 

[wfriedwald]

yes, I understand your curiousity. Believe it or not, it's just media, a lot of audio and video.

I do NOT need them all on at once, but it is too tricky - it requires, as we say, too much "cognitive overhead" - to keep plugging them in and then unplugging them. I need to have a lot of them connected, but not turned on all at once, to stay on top of everything.

So yes!

Having said that, do you have any suggestions?

Thanks!

w

 

[PaulD-UK]

Twenty years ago that was a thing, because of SCSI/ATA/SATA1 bandwidth and small GB sized HDs.

Nowadays it's still is a thing - with 10Gbit switched ethernet and as many multi-port hubs as you want.
At a professional level.

Nowadays hanging 16 SSDs off any single (consumer level) host port is going to sacrifice 90% of the bandwidth speed of the attached SSDs or devices.

That's very niche in today's consumer market, which means not many such devices are offered.

The least bandwidth-starved solution is with Thunderbolt4 docks and TB3 SSD enclosures, connecting USB 3 hubs for HDs.

Or you can hang six of your 16 port hubs off a Max Studio, if you need to...

Twenty years ago I ran a G5 Tower FCP video editing setup with two PCI-X 8-port SATA 3 cards (16 HDs), and a 3-port Firewire 800 card (6 HDs) and that was the biggest rig I knew of - professionals used RAID 5 arrays but I couldn't afford that.

Nowadays I have a Mac mini with up to 6 daisy-chained TB3 docks, each with a 2TB NVMe SSD inside, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports to attach any extra SSDs or flash drives needed.

So I can still run up to 18 or so storage devices if I need to (which I don't because of the size of today's SSDs and I don't deal with old-style projects these days).

The thought of trying to do all that with the instabilities of USB fills me with horror. 😆

 

[wfriedwald]

Twenty years ago that was a thing, because of SCSI/ATA/SATA1 bandwidth and small GB sized HDs.

Nowadays it's still is a thing - with 10Gbit switched ethernet and as many multi-port hubs as you want.
At a professional level.

Nowadays hanging 16 SSDs off any single (consumer level) host port is going to sacrifice 90% of the bandwidth speed of the attached SSDs or devices.

That's very niche in today's consumer market, which means not many such devices are offered.

The least bandwidth-starved solution is with Thunderbolt4 docks and TB3 SSD enclosures, connecting USB 3 hubs for HDs.

Or you can hang six of your 16 port hubs off a Max Studio, if you need to...

Twenty years ago I ran a G5 Tower FCP video editing setup with two PCI-X 8-port SATA 3 cards (16 HDs), and a 3-port Firewire 800 card (6 HDs) and that was the biggest rig I knew of - professionals used RAID 5 arrays but I couldn't afford that.

Nowadays I have a Mac mini with up to 6 daisy-chained TB3 docks, each with a 2TB NVMe SSD inside, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports to attach any extra SSDs or flash drives needed.

So I can still run up to 18 or so storage devices if I need to (which I don't because of the size of today's SSDs and I don't deal with old-style projects these days).

The thought of trying to do all that with the instabilities of USB fills me with horror. 😆

Hmmm...

so maybe instead of USB, I should consider connecting these drives via ethernet?

can anyone recommend a few ethernet drive enclosures that will hold four or more drives?

I wonder what the limits are regarding ethernet-connected storage units?

thanks for the suggestion!

w

 

[chabig]

Daisychain baby. You can connect sixteen 16 port hubs to one of your existing 16 port hubs for a total of 256 ports.

 

[wfriedwald]

thank you! Yes, that's always an option. Yes!