I'm always on the look out for the perfect USB hub for my Mac Pro. I just came across another 13 Port hub. Being able to plug in up to 13 devices into one hub may sound like a lot, but honestly I have close to that now without even trying hard, so it's not too far fetched to think that many of you do to. However, there are some advantages and disadvantages to this approach.
Advantages
13 ports is the biggest advantage. You plug the hub into one of your built-in USB ports and now you have 13 more. Great! There is also a flip up 13th port on top for quick access to things like thumb drives.
Disadvantages
The design of this particular hub creates a cable mess pretty quickly since the wires go in all four directions. The other disadvantage is that you are dividing up the throughput between 13 devices. Now this isn't really a big deal if most of your devices don't do a lot of data transfer like hard drives do. So for pointing devices, keyboards, tablets, printers, etc. you'll be fine. However, I wouldn't string more than a couple of hard drives off one port if speed was a factor.
The Bottom Line
If you need to have a lot of peripherals connected at once and you're short on built-in USB ports, this is a great option. If you can keep it off your desk from a cable management standpoint, that's even better. You can get it here for $33 in black or white.
NOW I know why my external drives are so slow with several plugged in to my Belkin multiport! How ’bout this on that page “Unibrain FireRepeater 800 Pro FireWire 800 IEEE 1394b Repeater Hub 5 Port” just for firewire? Maybe run my La Cie on it?
Does this have the ability to support both USB1.1 and USB2 devices or will it slow everything down to USB1.1 if both are plugged in?
Terry, I jumped into the Mac world last year, 24″ iMac. It is very inconvenient where the USB connections are and you are right, it doesn’t take long to use them all.
Do you (or your readers) have a stronger recommendation for a USB hub? Thanks!
I ended up getting this one instead, since it is rectangular and places most of the ports on either side. http://bit.ly/bk5pdl
I haven’t had any problems with it yet.