Would it be okay to use USB hubs for External Hard Disks?

[Teddymama]

Let's say I've ten external hard disk drives that I want linked to 1 PC. I wanna ask whether it is okay to use a USB hub for all of them. Are file transfers going to be as fast as a direct connection to laptop computer? How many external drives can I activate simultaneously utilizing a hub?

- I will not do a drive to External Drive file transfer while using the hub.

- When I decided to transfer files from an External Drive to another one, I'll copy it first into my PC before passing it on to the other one.

 

[TjeuV]

Let's say I've ten external hard disk drives that I want linked to 1 PC. I wanna ask whether it is okay to use a USB hub for all of them. Are file transfers going to be as fast as a direct connection to laptop computer? How many external drives can I activate simultaneously utilizing a hub?

- I will not do a drive to External Drive file transfer while using the hub.

- When I decided to transfer files from an External Drive to another one, I'll copy it first into my PC before passing it on to the other one.

If there's ten that need connection, well there's no real other option really. Except for wireless then ... But yeah, you might experience some slower transfers but it shouldn't be too bad. Much depends on what hub you use: usb2,3, thunderbolt...

 

[marktebbutt1]

If the external drives have a dedicated power cord for each, my guess is you probably won't see any slowdown assuming only one is transferring at any given time. At best, you'll probably see close to 100% transfer rate minus a little overhead for every active drive.

If your plan is for all 10 USB drives to be getting power from the USB hub, then I'd scrap the idea because it will probably overload/damage the main USB port.

Another option is to get a USB hub with its own power supply. That would help mitigate the risk of overloading the host port.