Best USB 3.0 Hub for Travel

Satechi-USB3.0-hub

Back in 2012 I did a review of what I consider to this day to be The Best USB 3.0 Hub. I still have this hub on my desk to this date with zero problems with it. It just works! While this USB 3.0 hub is great, it’s a bit too large for my travel tastes. Yes they do make this 4 port version but it’s still larger than I wanted for travel. The big decision you have to make when going with a travel USB 3.0 Hub is whether or not you want/need a powered hub or not. Obviously a powered hub is the way to go when you have the ability to plug it in to a power supply and you don’t mind carrying yet one more power supply in your bag. However, USB 3.0 offers more juice than USB 2.0 does. Therefore you may be able to get by with a self powered hub especially for occasional use during travel. When I’m using my MacBook Pro or MacBook Air on the road, I’m usually in need of one extra port. I usually have my Wacom Intuos Pro tablet plugged in and an external USB 3.0 hard drive. At that point I may need to plug in a document camera/scanner or a Lightning cable to sync/copy something from my iPhone or iPad.  Or I could simply need to plug in a thumb/flash drive to copy a quick file. These are the kinds of things I need to do via USB 3.0 on the road from time to time. The hard drive can be plugged into Thunderbolt. That frees up the USB port if needed, but not all of my portable external drives are Thunderbolt equipped.

I went with this portable USB 3.0 Hub

satechi-USB_3.0_hub_with_harddrive

Although Anker makes this 4 port USB 3.0 Hub, I went with this Satechi 4 port USB 3.0 Hub. It seemed to have high ratings across the board on multiple sites. I havent’ been disappointed as the Satechi 4 Port USB 3.0 Hub has been GREAT!. It performs as advertised as long as you keep in mind that it’s NOT a powered hub. So let’s get the rules of using a bus powered hub out of the way. First off if you plug in too many devices that require USB power you will likely run into issues where the devices may not work or may not work at their top USB 3.0 speed. So when I want to use a bus powered USB 3.0 hard drive I plug the hub into my computer first and then I plug in the hard drive. Lastly I plug in any slower devices. If you stick to these rules (plug in the hub first, and the most power hungry devices next) then you’ll be more successful. I was able to easily plug in my USB 3.0 G-Tech hard drive, and my Wacom wireless module and lastly my Ziggy document camera with one port on the hub to spare. This is likely more than I will actually use on a regular basis, but I wanted to test my worst case scenario. Also keep in mind that I have one more available USB 3.0 powered port on my MacBook Pro/Air. With this Hub I could easily have two external bus powered hard drives  (one in the USB 3.0 hub and the other in the built-in port) and still have other ports available for less power hungry devices. Since I only travel with three external hard drives on a regular basis, this is exactly what I needed as I never need to plug in more than two at a time and If for some strange reason I need all three, I can plug at least one of them in via Thunderbolt.

The Bottom Line

If you need a powered USB 3.0 Hub for travel, then you should probably get this one. However, if you’re looking for a smaller one that can be used even if you don’t have an available AC power port nearby or you don’t want to carry one more power brick, then you could go with this Satechi 4 Port USB 3.0 Hub and get the extra ports you need.

 



 

Best USB 3.0 Hub

Now that I have a mix of USB 3.0 and 2.0 peripherals I began the search for the best USB 3.0 Hub. I was interested in a 7 port model and most of all it had to be able to mix both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices. What I mean by this is that USB 3.0 devices shouldn’t suffer slow downs when you plug USB 2.0 devices into the same hub. My search led me to the Uspeed USB 3.0 7 Port Hub.

Setup and testing

Setup was easy and straight forward. It came with a power supply that in my opinion has a relatively short cord. It didn’t reach my power strip under my desk that my previous hub’s power supply did. Otherwise it came with everything needed to set it up and plug it into my MacBook Pro Retina Display. I plugged in my USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices. However, before hand I ran a speed test on one of my hard drives plugged directly into my computer and then I ran the same test with the drive plugged into the hub while USB 2.0 devices were also plugged in and I got the exact same speed results. So it passed my biggest test/concern.

Design

All of the USB ports are on one side, which is both good and bad. It’s good for cable management since all the USB cables go in one side. However, the power cable and host USB cable are on the other side, so you’re going to have cables coming off both sides no matter what. There are blue LED lights that confirm if a port is in use or not.

The Bottom Line

While this may not be the prettiest design, it is very functional and meets my needs quite nicely. If you’re looking for a 7 port USB 3.0 hub to plug in both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices, then this is probably one of if not the best one on the market.

You can get the Uspeed USB 3.0 7 Port Hub here.