[SOLVED] Best powered USB hub

Chance1525

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Nov 25, 2015
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So I am moving my PC around my room and I am looking in to getting a Powered USB hub. I was wondering what would be the best solution for one that can handle a Standalone mic (blue yeti) headset (Steel Series Arctis 5) keyboard (Blackwidow RGB) and mouse and mouse pad (Mamba Hyperflux). So I would need a total of at least 5 ports. I just put the peripherals for a idea of power draw. Or do you think it would be better to go with individual cable extenders due to a need of power. I did already kind of ask this question I just never got recommendations on which USB hub to go with. A lot of them seem like they're just for charging phones and other things of the sort. Also one final thing is do the USB hubs repeat the signal or does it just keep degrading.
 
Solution
The Amazon basics hubs, and a lot of other Amazon basics electronics, are ok for basic use but I would not recommend using them with high end, high power draw or audio equipment. I've had three or four Amazon basics USB hubs in the past fail fairly early on in their life cycles, and they are not particularly well built to begin with. Again, ok for light use or basic hardware, but I don't think I'd recommend using them with the kind of scenario the OP is indicating.

If you're worried about surge protection, then you should look into whole house surge protection. That is the only thing that is going to actually protect you from a direct or close proximity lightning strike on your gridlet or close section of the power grid. Other types of...
The Amazon basics hubs, and a lot of other Amazon basics electronics, are ok for basic use but I would not recommend using them with high end, high power draw or audio equipment. I've had three or four Amazon basics USB hubs in the past fail fairly early on in their life cycles, and they are not particularly well built to begin with. Again, ok for light use or basic hardware, but I don't think I'd recommend using them with the kind of scenario the OP is indicating.

If you're worried about surge protection, then you should look into whole house surge protection. That is the only thing that is going to actually protect you from a direct or close proximity lightning strike on your gridlet or close section of the power grid. Other types of surge protection such as power strip surge protectors (Which are mostly worthless), UPS systems with surge protection and line conditioners with surge protection are mainly intended to offer SOME amount of protection from inrush current after an outage, brown outs or in some cases with very high quality units, possibly offer some protection if there is a lightning strike that is not close enough to cause a catastrophic surge but still briefly causes an out of spec surge of a lesser degree.

If you want to protect against THOSE kinds of possible surges, then get a good UPS with surge protection OR a high quality industrial surge protection power strip from somebody like the companies listed below.

Years of experience using PC systems and having to diagnose bushels full of issues where a high number of them ended up being faults with the circuitry inside the power strips. Primarily, cheap box store models but also a good number of supposedly premium power strip "surge protectors" that don't actually protect you from anything other than your own fear of what might happen if you actually end up needing a surge protector. A false sense of security.


Most people buy and use power strips because they THINK that the fact it says surge protector means something. Usually, it doesn't. This is one of my favorite quotes on the subject from an electrical engineer and residential/commercial electrical journeyman I know.


Buy a good one, but understand expensive OFTEN does not equal good.


"Monster" brand are the low end junk that are sold for a premium price. Look for what us professionals use. Tripp-lite is one of my go to absolute favorites as they have a price to quality mix that is exceptional. The Belkin brand is junk as far as I am concerned as they focus on how it looks and not how it works. APC is also another one that I will trust , but they mostly cater to data centers and Corporate customers when it comes to their quality units and they DO sell some lower end products that slot into the budget market that are not the same unquestionable quality as what they sell for professional and enterprise use.


Lastly, if you really care about your electronics, get a Whole house surge suppressor installed in your electrical panel. Only a few hundred bucks and it protects everything including the overpriced LED lightbulbs that is all the rage these days.


Units you want to consider will be those sold by APC, Tripp-Lite, Leviton, Eaton, Leviton, General Electric, Polyphaser, Ditek, Siemens, ABB, Square D, Intermatic, Cutler-Hammer (Eaton), and Syscom, these are the brands you can trust to have high quality internal electronics if you MUST use a power strip but even so you STILL will want to ask around about specific models OR look to professional reviews as even these big boys occasionally have a product with some glaring flaw that makes it's way into the final product and might best be avoided compared to other available models.

Do not however use a power strip thinking that it offers significant protection, because even the best of them does not, not really. Whole house protection is the only real protection from surges.


Monster and Belkin, and a few others that are commonly used, almost unilaterally use the same protections in their 45 dollar surge protector strips as what you would find in an 8 dollar Amazon or Walmart branded model. And if you ever take one of these, or any cheap box store, dollar store (Even worse than these others usually BUT occasionally about the same) or Harbor Freight power strip apart you are likely to find frayed wires, poorly soldered connections with blobs of solder nearly touching crucial and potential short circuit points, super low quality MOVs, and a ton of other indicators that no real integrity was involved in the design or manufacturer of these units.


Another factor to keep in mind is that even with some of these high quality units, any protection that MIGHT be afforded, is usually the end of that product after one shot. This, directly from the Tripp-Lite manual for the #1 selling surge protection power strip in the world.


All models feature an internal protection that will disconnect the surge-protective component at the end of its useful life but will maintain power to the load now unprotected.


I believe many models from APC and a couple of the others I listed have now incorporated designs that permanently disengage any ability of the device to deliver power once a surge or short of significant enough caliber to incur the protection has occured. That basically means once there has been a surge or short, throw the device away. Even for high end models. Only whole house protection and properly earthed circuits offer any true protection from a serious surge or direct strike from lightning somewhere close enough to affect your segment of the grid.


And whatever you do, don't EVER buy any kind of extension cord, power strip or other electronic device with slip rings.



So, get a GOOD USB hub that does what it does well, and then if you are worried about protection, get a GOOD surge protection unit of some kind, whether that is a high end UPS system or surge specific power strip, that does what IT does well, as well. Don't get a USB hub thinking that it will be protected by itself, because it won't, and neither will anything connected to it.

And if you have expensive network hardware it might be a really good idea to put a sacrificial switch in between that hardware and the outside world, so that if there is a significant surge event you will lose the switch and not the rest of the hardware on the network, like one of our moderators did recently even though he DID have good surge protection in other areas, just not for the network devices.
 
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