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recommend me a cheap reliable powered hub for a new macbook pro.

O

opencube

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 31, 2009
42
0
please :)

will be running a printer/scanner off it with probably memory card reader etc.
 
I dunno what you want exactly when you say cheap, but I would suggest the Belkin Hubs. Some are powered, I have one of them and the hubs are well spaced apart. This is good because some usb devices (usb flash drives) are wider than the usb itself, if you know what I mean
 
also take a look at belkin networked usb hub ($80) its a bit expensive but you can have all your devices wirelessly connected to your mac.
I'd be honest, mac compatibility is a bit iffy, since I got it my mac has frozen a few times while trying to connect to my devices with automatic conection.
However if you let the connection to be manual. you should not have trouble. Right now I have my multifunction and two external HDDs connected to it, also i conect my flash reader to it. Also data transfer is not very fast (1-3Mb/s usually) but it is enough to stream audio and video (even HD content.) So take a look (also you can access from any computer in home as long it has the drivers installed.
 
blitzraider said:
I dunno what you want exactly when you say cheap, but I would suggest the Belkin Hubs. Some are powered, I have one of them and the hubs are well spaced apart. This is good because some usb devices (usb flash drives) are wider than the usb itself, if you know what I mean
Click to expand...

+1. I have 2 four ports and a 7 port for my various computers. They work great.
 
xoggyux said:
also take a look at belkin networked usb hub ($80) its a bit expensive but you can have all your devices wirelessly connected to your mac.
I'd be honest, mac compatibility is a bit iffy, since I got it my mac has frozen a few times while trying to connect to my devices with automatic conection.
However if you let the connection to be manual. you should not have trouble. Right now I have my multifunction and two external HDDs connected to it, also i conect my flash reader to it. Also data transfer is not very fast (1-3Mb/s usually) but it is enough to stream audio and video (even HD content.) So take a look (also you can access from any computer in home as long it has the drivers installed.
Click to expand...

Well this is not a bad choice as well, but I am not so sure about the stability yet. With so many wireless devices nowadays, I personally would want to keep the amount of signals and networks in the air to a bare minimum. This would ensure maxiumum effectiveness with the networks that you really need (such as wireless router networks). Just my 2 cents.:apple:
 
blitzraider said:
Well this is not a bad choice as well, but I am not so sure about the stability yet. With so many wireless devices nowadays, I personally would want to keep the amount of signals and networks in the air to a bare minimum. This would ensure maxiumum effectiveness with the networks that you really need (such as wireless router networks). Just my 2 cents.:apple:
Click to expand...

It connects via ethernet to the router, so the wireless signal is the same as the router's wireless signal (no extra one.) Also I presume the stability issues are limited to Mac OS X since in vista (did not try lot, just a few times) it seams to be ok, therefore i think that in future versions of the drivers it will work much better. Again for scanners, printers and memory cards it runs great, the problem can start if you put a couple of HDDs attached to it, and in my case I had time machine configured to back up for one of those HDDs which might have had an important role on the freezing, in the last 2 weeks I have had no problems.
 
xoggyux said:
It connects via ethernet to the router, so the wireless signal is the same as the router's wireless signal (no extra one.) Also I presume the stability issues are limited to Mac OS X since in vista (did not try lot, just a few times) it seams to be ok, therefore i think that in future versions of the drivers it will work much better. Again for scanners, printers and memory cards it runs great, the problem can start if you put a couple of HDDs attached to it, and in my case I had time machine configured to back up for one of those HDDs which might have had an important role on the freezing, in the last 2 weeks I have had no problems.
Click to expand...

I happen to see this Belkin Networked Hub today in an email from Buy.com. The comments and reviews make it sound like Macs aren't supported that well.
 
I have several of these daisy chained together to connect HDs, Printers, iPods, speakers, random stuff and have had no problems at all in nearly 2 years.

Vakoss 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub
TC-212-AS%20-P(w).jpg


$13 at Frys
 
i also have a kennsington powered usb hub that is great. I believe it was bought at the apple store (not by me)
 
I have several hubs in various price ranges, the cheapest one being 15 euro (7 ports). I have no problems with any of them.

So I think you can choose randomly (or one with a clever layout of ports).

thistle
 
MooneyFlyer said:
I happen to see this Belkin Networked Hub today in an email from Buy.com. The comments and reviews make it sound like Macs aren't supported that well.
Click to expand...

I own one, and I can tell you it does work, it works for the printer/scanner (multifunction) card reader, photo camera, usb flash memory, it even work for my wireless mouse (though it would be stupid to connect it to the hub unless the hub is in the same table as the mac and then what would it be useful for?) all usb devices I own i have tried them, the computer literally believes it is connected to the device.
As I said earlier It did have frozen my computer a few times (maybe around 10 times in the last 2 months) usually when trying to disconnect/connect all devices at the same time, however I disabled automatic connection (for all devices except printer) and its been working just fine for the last couple of months.

Again this is not a solution for everybody, however if you dont need very heavy bandwidth (e.g. Hardrive,) this is a great deal, no cables (at least pc side,) you can share your devices freely between several computers, and really powered hubs are in the 20-30 (non powered which would work just fine for devices that connect to ac wall are $10 :D) so spending extra $20 wont kill you.
 
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I have a Belkin F5U700 7-port powered hub. Its great except for one caveat -- the power cord is exceptionally short. About 3 feet. And it has a LED light that is on whenever it is plugged in to a outlet or computer. Other than that its been pretty good.
 
I've been using the Belkin 7 port units for years on my Windows, Linux, and now Mac machines. Very reliable.
 
I bought the Belkin 7 port about 2 days ago and every time I unplug something and then plug it back it the device will not recognize it. I have to unplug the power and usb to mac connector and then plug it all back in and then it works fine. Maybe I am doing something wrong...
 
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