advantages external 2.0 usb hub vs. internal

[rikit]

1)What are the advantages of using a 2.0 external usb hub vs internal 2.0 pci card? I am trying to decide which route to go.

2)Will software drivers be included to make 2.0 work in my computer I have xp?

[redwudz]

One advantage to a PCI card is that it may have more than one channel. A hub would only have the one channel and the devices plugged into it may have more conflicts.

With XP if you have the SP1 update, I believe the 2.0 drivers are included. If not, they would be easy to install.

[rikit]

I am not sure what the one channel thing you are talking about. I will take a guess, do you mean ports? Ports being the things I can plug my scanner,printer, external burner into. Please explain. The external hub I am looking at has its own power source plus 4 ports for devices(according to the description). Also, I am guessing since it has its own power source it would not need to use the computers power supply as a source, compared to a internal 4 port pci card. I am just guessing, I don't know 8)

[redwudz]

Sorry, I'm not a expert on USB but my understanding is:

USB Hubs do NOT supply additional USB bandwidth

If you require additional bandwidth a PCI/USB add-on is required NOT A HUB

If I'm wrong here, someone please correct me.

[waheed]

Im not sure about USB PCI cards, but redwudz is right about USB Hub, they are sharing the same bandwidth.

USB 2.0 provides a theoretical burst speed of 480Mbps. For a 4 port hub, this bandwidth is shared.

Is this good. Depends on what you connect. Its fine for devices like keyboard, mouse, printers etc... but for external hard disk or external dvd writers etc, id good for the internal USB 2.0 card.

[Raga]

Bandwidth aside, they also share the power output of a single USB port. If you need to connect many devices that require power over the USB cable, you may run out of luck. For example, you couldn't get the power you need into one of these 2.5" USB hard drives that want you to plug in two USB cables to get sufficient juice.

If you have the option, I believe PCI is the way to go.

[rikit]

I seen this device at meritline.com. This would be what I was looking at
http://meritline.com/usbhubusbmin.html . They carry the 4 port bus powered and 4 port self powered. I plan on connecting my printer, scanner, and dvd burner to it. But let me get this correct, is each port 480mbps each or 480mbps is divided among 4 ports, meaning each port gets a portion of that 480mbps?
If divided up among 4 ports does this still make each device travel information at the 2.0 speed or would I be defeating my pupose for speed? Then yes, in that case a pci card would be best.

[Raga]

If I am not entirely mistaken, it isn't that only 120Mbps is allocated per port all the time; only if you use all ports at once, the capacity will be divided. Say, if you scanned, printed a two-hundred page document and burned a DVD at 16x at the same time, you might run into issues.

However watch out for USB hubs that are advertised as "High-speed", and when you read the small print, it says "Full USB 1.1 speed!" This especially with USB > USB hubs.

[rikit]

Do these external 2.0 hubs plug into your computer existing ports?

To enable these 2.o hubs to work, do you need an existing 2.0 pci card in your computer? In this case I don't...and then I am assuming the 2.0 hub is just acting as extra 2.0 ports, say you have a card with 2 ports and now you add a hub with 4 ports, now you have a total of 6 2.0 ports, is this correct?

Or is the hub plugging into a 1.0 usb port (computer)and then giving you 4 2.0 ports to plug into? Just trying to understand this to its fullest.

[waheed]

Do these external 2.0 hubs plug into your computer existing ports?

Yes

To enable these 2.o hubs to work, do you need an existing 2.0 pci card in your computer?

Yes, you need an existing ubs2 port.

I am assuming the 2.0 hub is just acting as extra 2.0 ports, say you have a card with 2 ports and now you add a hub with 4 ports, now you have a total of 6 2.0 ports, is this correct?

No, this is partly correct. If you are 2 existing UBS2 ports on your PC and add a 4 port hub, you technically have 6 ports, but the 4 ports on the hub is sharing the same bandwidth from the one port from your PC.

An external USB2 work is designed to give extra ports for PC with exising USB2 ports. It will share the same bandwidth, but suitable for keyboard, mice, USB disk, Memoery card writers etc...

If you do not have a USB2 on your PC, get a PCI Card instead, especially for external HDD and dvd writers.

[Bravo568]

Wrong topic

sorry

[rikit]

Thanks everyone I will get a usb 2 pci card.