Question Drive count limits on MacOS?

[Lostinlodos]

Anyone know how many drives can be daisy-chained to a late 2017 iMac via USB hubs?

 

[Ralston18]

Not (full disclosure) a direct answer but how many drives need to be daisy chained?

What drives: make, model, capacity, how full?

How many USB hubs? Independently powered?

Knowing more about the overall requirement(s) is necessary.

 

[Lostinlodos]

At the moment I go between 27-30 USB attached SATA SSDs.
each between 256GB and 4TB, majority 1TB.

All are Samsung 860 or 870s
Sabrent SATA to USB3 adaptors
All APFS case sensitive. All unique names.

three ACASIS USB hubs. Each powered.
One fed into another, one on it’s own port.

I have a separate hub that supports a CD burner and a DVD/BD player. Mouse, KB, and a single SSD.

I don’t want to consolidate, they’re separated out for a reason.
I’m wondering if MacOS has some baked in limit.

no matter where in the chain or even a standalone hub, I’m running into it dropping a new drive I’m trying to use.
I’ve tried adding it. it ejects on its own
I’ve tried unplugging other drives, the disk works. Plug other drives in, new one (and sometimes others) eject.
I’ve tried 4 different out of package new disks. Same problem.
I’m wondering also if I hit that “end point” issue I’ve come across a bit of on the internets but nobody seems to know how that’s all dolled out.
And if there’s some sort of solution. Such as a JBOD tower or something that could route around whatever is the issue?
Or am I just missing some stupid thing by overthinking it?