USB hubs and external portable hard drives concern?

[brannsiu]

I have a couple of external portable hard drive ,both 2.5 and 3.5 are connected through a USB hubs

would it drive too much power/current from the motherboard through that USB port and cause damage?

Usually at most I will connect to 2 drive only, one is 2.5 (no external power), another one is 3.5 (supported by external power)

The MOBO , I'm not sure about the exact model number at the moment, but it is a basic and old version, probably released years ago. supporting only H61 and does not support USB 3.0

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Nothing to worry about, the 3.5" drive is independently powered anyhow, leaving just one portable drive actually drawing power from the USB port. Any PC or laptop can handle that.

If you ever get to the point where there are too many USB-powered external drives plugged in, the worst that can happen is that one or more of those drives won't get enough power and you'll here a continuous "connect/disconnect" event sound made by Windows.

You can easily remedy that by using a mains-powered USB hub and plugging your portable drives in to that.

Incidentally, an external hard drive is only a "portable" one if it doesn't require a mains adapter. So in your case you only have one portable hard drive, not two. The other one is a "desktop" hard drive.

 

[brannsiu]

Nothing to worry about, the 3.5" drive is independently powered anyhow, leaving just one portable drive actually drawing power from the USB port. Any PC or laptop can handle that.

If you ever get to the point where there are too many USB-powered external drives plugged in, the worst that can happen is that one or more of those drives won't get enough power and you'll here a continuous "connect/disconnect" event sound made by Windows.

You can easily remedy that by using a mains-powered USB hub and plugging your portable drives in to that.

Incidentally, an external hard drive is only a "portable" one if it doesn't require a mains adapter. So in your case you only have one portable hard drive, not two. The other one is a "desktop" hard drive.

Yes, one desktop drive (with power) and one portable drive (without power), but the USB hub is not powered.
I hope they can handle well. Sometimes I could feel so hot on the surface of a USB stick when it's put into the USB hub writing files.

Even though I don't have answer, I hoping others will quickly join in with answers because I think "hot" usb stick is not a good sign.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Try another pen drive, probably getting hot because it's a cheapo one, poor quality.

And if you expect or hope to get more replies, do not choose a post as the "best solution".
Wait until you don't need any more help or advice on that topic.

 

[brannsiu]

The USB stick was bought from authentic sales stores . They are SONY and Toshiba. I don't think they are of poor quality. The heat is not too much but quite significant to notice but only happens when actively transferring files.