USB hub - with switches?

[Doug Lassiter]

I'm buying a powered USB hub, and it appears that you can spend an extra dozen bucks or so and get one where all the ports are switched. I'm trying to understand why I would ever want to switch off a particular USB port. What purpose would that serve? How would that capability be advantageous for a user? Seems to me that's just window dressing. Put a switch on anything you can switch. Just adds a point of failure for what should be a transparent capability.

 

[Mark RM]

because unplugging items from a hub always risks cable and port damage... in fact the cables and ports have a rated life expectancy of in and out.. switches last much longer. If the cables coming in are in a an awkward spot, it's easier to just turn an item off than unplug it.

If you don't need the capability, you don't need it. It's like buying a a tractor trailer, if you have no use for one, it's not a very good grocery getter.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

That's a good perspective about the likelihood of plug and socket damage. But why does one need to disconnect a device from a USB port, whether with a switch or by unplugging it? I agree that if you don't need the capability, you don't need it. But who needs it? Why do you need to turn a device off? You're not even turning it off. You're just disconnecting the data line.

As I said, I think switches are unnecessary toys that allow for an increase in product price. They don't serve a real need, except as manipulatives to play with. I mean, a USB hub with an attached fidget spinner would do the same thing, no?

 

[USAFRet]

I have a 12 port USB hub.
2 On/Off switches, for 6 ports each.

Why do I need to disconnect, or turn off via the switch, a USB device?
Multiple reasons.

1. Move data to a whole different PC
2. Turn OFF the USB SD card thing, to not screw up the Lightroom Import locations.
3. So the system does not try to boot from a Linux LiveUSB that is still connected in it.

Multiple reasons why a switch is better than simply removing the device, or why it may not be useful to leave a device connected all the time.

 

[Mark RM]

I get that you don't get it, but it's not a gimmick when you need it.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

Thank you USAFRet. Interesting. Not sure how a switched USB affects moving data to a different PC, and I'm not familiar with Lightroom. You have a machine that will boot to whatever bootable device is attached to it? Never heard of that. In my machines, they'll boot to wherever you tell them to boot to. But if you have one of those, a switch would indeed be handy.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you USAFRet. Interesting. Not sure how a switched USB affects moving data to a different PC, and I'm not familiar with Lightroom. You have a machine that will boot to whatever bootable device is attached to it? Never heard of that. But if you have one of those, a switch would indeed be handy.

Data.
If I wish to copy something to a different PC, I might do it via a USB stick.
Copy to the USB, take it out, connect to the other PC, copy.

Having the USB hub powered on all the time is useless.

Booting from a USB?
If the BIOS boot order has the USB in the boot order, above the existing hard drive...then it WILL try to boot from that. Not always a desired outcome.
For instance, I currently have a Linux bootable USB and a Win 10 bootable USB connected in that 12 port hub.
Magically...both banks of the hub are OFF, so the system will not see those ant attempt to boot. Unless I physically choose to allow it to do that.

I also have 2 x SD card adapters connected. I don't have to take them out to prevent interaction with them. Simply hit the switch to turn that bank off.

Some people do use USB connections for other things.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

Having the USB hub powered on all the time is useless? Why? It's consuming almost no power ... USB sticks don't get warm when they're plugged in. Maybe a few hundred mW. Power certainly doesn't affect the lifetime of the stick. This might be an issue if we're talking about battery lifetime on a laptop however. Of course, the hub power supply greatly dominates any USB stick in the total power consumption.

That is a fair point about the boot order. A switch basically removes it from the boot order. If a machine has to automatically restart, and you want to be sure it doesn't automatically trip to one particular device that you've left powered up, being able to turn off that data connection is useful.

OK, it sounds like there might be some usefulness to USB hub switches, though none really pertain to my application. I was just wondering if I missed something that did.