Will it work with 1 or two external bus-powered hard drives if I don't plug in the power adapter? Or does it require the power adapter to function?
259145
In general, I have found that the USB hubs that supply a wall-wart for power to the hub, do indeed NEED the power to the hub.Dick
259146
No. It requires external power for the drives and most other USB-powered devices. I ended up connecting my non-powered USB devices into the hub and those requiring power directly into my iMac. Fortunately, I had sufficient devices that didn't need power that it worked.
259147
i have the power plugged in with 7 drives. I think the reason my drives didnt work is because there's not enough power on the bus for drives. I know you can run one drive without a problem, but don't know about 2. I would assume you want power just so you don't loose the drive in the middle of writing as happened to me before without this hub.
259148
I don't think this 7 gang adapter unit will be able to power the hard drives without a power cord plugged in. I tested this with my phone and Ipad plugged into the adapter. They both powered down immediately when unplugged, and the adapter wasn't recognized. One interesting note though. I have noticed that my Ipad will actually charge via the 30 pin cable from the 7 gang adapter. Even though on the Ipad it says "not charging", it does take awhile but it will connect to the computer and charge from the same cable.Mike
2274443
You will need 4 adapters. Each adapter can only use one hdd. It has enough power for a mobile/portable drive.
8085
I would see no reason why not. I use mine with both usb 3 and usb 2 pc's with no issues. I use it with a 500gb 2.5 sata drive in a usb 3 enclosure as well as the same setup in a usb 2 enclosure as well as flash drives in both flavors. It has worked flawlessly with both but is noticeably faster with the usb 3 interface on the laptop. I remember there being some question whether it would power an external hard drive through the port, without an external power connection but all of my usb devices power fine through the hub. I've had no issues whatsoever with any usb device I plug it into or plug into it. I would see no reason why not. I use mine with both usb 3 and usb 2 pc's with no issues. I use it with a 500gb 2.5 sata drive in a usb 3 enclosure as well as the same setup in a usb 2 enclosure as well as flash drives in both flavors. It has worked flawlessly with both but is noticeably faster with the usb 3 interface on the laptop. I remember there being some question whether it would power an external hard drive through the port, without an external power connection but all of my usb devices power fine through the hub. I've had no issues whatsoever with any usb device I plug it into or... » Read More I would see no reason why not. I use mine with both usb 3 and usb 2 pc's with no issues. I use it with a 500gb 2.5 sata drive in a usb 3 enclosure as well as the same setup in a usb 2 enclosure as well as flash drives in both flavors. It has worked flawlessly with both but is noticeably faster with the usb 3 interface on the laptop. I remember there being some question whether it would power an external hard drive through the port, without an external power connection but all of my usb devices power fine through the hub. I've had no issues whatsoever with any usb device I plug it into or plug into it. « Show Less
2045929
Yes, that will work. The 2nd USB connector is just for power. That's because some older USB ports will detect a power overload if the drive tries to pull all its power from a single port. To workaround that they the Y cable can be used to pull power from 2 ports. Non-anceint USB ports, like 2.0 or 3.0 or from a powered hub will probably work fine if you just plug in the one end of the cable. Try it with just one. If it works, you're good. If it doesn't, the computer will tell you "power overload detected" and the drive won't work, but no damage will be done.
1013792
Yes it works on 2.0usb connections that I connected , about 3 pc and 2 laptops.. 1.5 terr drives
2005294
MANUFACTURER ANSWER: Thank you for posting your question. External drives tend to be extremely power hungry because they have motors along with their electronic circuitry. They usually draw the maximum current that is allowed from a USB 2.0 port (500mA) or even more. Because of this, I would not recommend running four USB-powered external drives from this hub. It is designed for a typical mix of USB devices, such as a keyboard, mouse, flash drive, etc., including an external drive or two. The AC adapter for the hub supplies a maximum of 2.5 amps, so if the four external drives you mentioned each drew 500mA, then that alone would put the AC adapter near its capacity. Because external drives often draw more than the specified limit, especially when starting up, I would be concerned that a drive might disconnect suddenly due to lack of power during a write operation, possibly corrupting data on the disk. To be safe, I would recommend a maximum of three external drives if they were by themselves, or two if other devices are attached to the hub. For using more drives, I recommend our 7-port USB 2.0 hub with a 3.0 amp power supply (http://plugable.com/products/USB2-HUB-AG7) or one of our USB 3.0 hubs (which work on USB 2.0 ports), with 4.0 amp adapters. I hope this answers your question. David, Plugable Support
191706
This did not work on my WD Blue 500GB drive. You need an external power source to power the drive. SATA connection worked fine. There just wasn't enough juice to power the hard drive even with both usb connectors plugged in.
1213491
I use mine with just 1 USB port for power, but apparently it depends on the drive you are using inside the enclosure. I use it for the 'old' drive in a laptop. I upgraded the internal drive and took out the 250Gb drive and put it in this case as a back-up drive.
1218560
Im not 100% positive, I do know that this power supply is not the same model as the one that came with my 3tb seagate external hdd. It does however work flawlessly with mine, it seems to be universal fir seagate drives and should work with yours.
1220330
I continuously run two 3GB external hard drives and occasionally plug in a third and never had any indication of a problem. Since this hub has an external power supply I doubt that you will have any problems. It is an exceptionally well-made hub.
1677538
I didn't need the power cable when using one external hard drive but I did need to hook up the power cable when I added a second external hard drive to the second USB 3.0 port on the card. The power coming through the card from my Dell E5510 notebook computer was not sufficient to power the two external hard drives (one was a Western Digital My Passport and the other was a Seagate Backup Plus).
2005291
I have two that are self powered with no problems. In my opinion it should support 4 external hard drives because it plugs into a power source.
2227779
Yes but be careful how many bus power devices you plug in, if you run two or three you may have power issues.
1024264
that's determined by the drive capacity and the connected controller. The backplane on this device is just a passthrough, and one SATA cable must be run to each slot. It doesn't act as a bus adapter.
1555909
I tried to plug in an external 320GB hard drive and it didn't work at all. The enclosure had its own power supply and I have plugged it into other USB Hubs before, but this one didn't even recognize it. don't know if it was defective or a limitation of the design, but I am returning it considering that I bought this Hub to swap multiple external hard drives and thumb drives. Hope this helps.
1554627
I was able to get a couple of different USB-powered hard drives to work with the adapter. Different drives require different amounts of power, though, so I can't say it would work with your drive. I would guess that it probably would, though.
2245377
I'm aware that the drive works with both USB cables plugged in. However, since the choice is between using up an extra usb port and a usb extension cable (my laptop has exactly two ports: one on each side, so the default cable won't reach); buying a usb hub; or finding a power adapter that will work with the unit, I would prefer to have the extra power cable run to where the drive will "permanently" sit.