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IMac USB Hub that can power 4 USB powered 5TB Hard Drives
- Thread starter U2Boy
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I believe the solution to your problem is the Caldigit Element hub. You get 4xUSB-A and 3xUSB-C ports fully powered that can get up to 10GB/s for each HD at the same time. Possible some TB3 hubs (Caldigit TS3+ etc) may offer about the same number of USB-A ports.
Power-wise the hub of your choice should be externally powered, otherwise there is no chance that would be able to power 4 external hard-drives at the same time. the hubs that you get power through to a laptops (through a PD port) usually they distribute only a small amount of the power to the external drives (as most of the power need to reach your laptop)and they run to all sort of problems if you connect to many drives at the same time.
Data-wise, there are all kind of issues with the usb-c and usb-a hubs. if you don't get a true thunderbolt hub, the max transfer speed of the ports in IN TOTAL would be 10GB/s (at best) because all the ports need to share the same bus and 10GB/s is the cap. Also if you're trying to transfer data between drives that are connected on the same usb-c/usb-a hub, you'll find that the speed can become abysmally slow. this problem is less evident with the Thunderbolt dock, as the max speed can be up to 40GB/s.
So your best chance is looking for a TB3 or TB4 hub, externally powered, with the number of ports you need.
The one below is your best chance.
www.caldigit.com
Power-wise the hub of your choice should be externally powered, otherwise there is no chance that would be able to power 4 external hard-drives at the same time. the hubs that you get power through to a laptops (through a PD port) usually they distribute only a small amount of the power to the external drives (as most of the power need to reach your laptop)and they run to all sort of problems if you connect to many drives at the same time.
Data-wise, there are all kind of issues with the usb-c and usb-a hubs. if you don't get a true thunderbolt hub, the max transfer speed of the ports in IN TOTAL would be 10GB/s (at best) because all the ports need to share the same bus and 10GB/s is the cap. Also if you're trying to transfer data between drives that are connected on the same usb-c/usb-a hub, you'll find that the speed can become abysmally slow. this problem is less evident with the Thunderbolt dock, as the max speed can be up to 40GB/s.
So your best chance is looking for a TB3 or TB4 hub, externally powered, with the number of ports you need.
The one below is your best chance.
Thunderbolt 4 | USB4 | Element Hub | CalDigit – CalDigit
www.caldigit.com
Thanks, but can you let me know the model? When I look them up it seems most have 1 3.0 USB, 1 2.0 USB and some HDMI ports. Not what I need. I did order a USB Hub that is externally powered. Just want to get something that works well and is reliable.
From your response I recon that you didn’t read my previous comment very carefully.
Anyway, what you need is the Caldigit Element hub. That’s the name of the product and you’ll find the link for this product at the end of my previous comment.