Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

USB 3.0 Extension Lead and Hub help.

Tags:
  • Power Supplies
  • USB3
  • Cable
  • Laptops
  • Extension
  • External Hard Drive
  • Peripherals
Last response: in Computer Peripherals
Share
August 25, 2014 1:40:06 PM

Summary: My laptop has a single USB 3.0 slot. Can I use a 5m 'active' USB 3.0 extender cable with a powered USB 3.0 hub at the end of that extension cable so that I can connect to my 3 external hard drives via USB 3.0?

Background: Reason being is simply that I like to stream movies from my external hard drives through the USB 3.0 to my laptop and then through media streaming to my PS3 or Xbox which is hooked up to my TV (I also output via HDMI occasionally if they cannot play the required format of video file). Basically the hard drives are at my desk, if I stream movies it means my laptop has to be at the desk to facilitate this. However sometimes I like to use my laptop to take notes if I'm streaming lectures to my TV. This means I need a longer USB cable to do this. (At the moment I'm having to move the stuff across to my internal hard drive which takes a while.) Sorry if that seems complicated, I'm probably just over-explaining.

Questions and my idea:
I am planning on using this mainly to stream 1080p movies, will the transfer rate be sufficient? I'm not 100% on how this would affect drive performance?

I was planning on using a extension lead like this with a hub setup like one of these two:
1) Hub (USB power supply) (I can use a usb type a to UK Power Socket adapter so it plugs into the wall but I'm not sure if USB can carry the required current/voltage to power this set-up?)

2)Hub (Socket power supply) with a Micro USB 3.0 Male to Type A Male Adapter

Would this work or is it a waste of money?
Will there be any errors in data transfer, I have heard this can happen on longer distances.

Hopefully this makes sense... haha, thanks very much in advance. :) 

More about : usb extension lead hub

a b ) Power supply
a b D Laptop
August 25, 2014 2:06:35 PM

If you have a desktop as well it would be much easier to just plug the externals into it and then use your network to stream the movies. Blu-Ray quality movie is only 25-30mbps in speed.
m
0
l
August 25, 2014 2:10:30 PM

boosted1g said:
If you have a desktop as well it would be much easier to just plug the externals into it and then use your network to stream the movies. Blu-Ray quality movie is only 25-30mbps in speed.

Unfortunately I don't have a desktop being a poor student, thanks for the suggestion though. That's good about the transfer rate, didn't know that!

Do you see any issues in the extension lead idea? I've heard of USB extension leads and Hubs not working so it's an area I'm not particularly familiar with! :) 
m
0
l
a b ) Power supply
a b D Laptop
August 25, 2014 2:29:36 PM

I would be almost certian that the no-name usb cable on ebay would fail. There is lots of issues with USB 3.0 at farther distances.

There is just not any good options for this in your price range.
If your router has usb ports it on it you can try to mount the drives that way.
Some routers do this fairly well, and some are complete garbage.

The ideal solution is a file server or nas box.

If you ever had the funds to do so, you can put together a pretty low end pc (celeron and 4gb of ram) and put linux on it and have a cheap file server. If ever going to go that route I would advise using xbmcbuntu for the linux distro. That is ubuntu with xbmc software integrated into it already. XBMC is a highly customizable media player software that will play almost any mainstream music and video file, easy to stream content to, and does a very good job of cataloging/post processing your movie, tv show and music collections.
XBMC actually stood for XBOX Media Center as it was originaly coded so that you could install it on an orignal xbox and play your SD movies on it. As xbox went to the 360 and movies started being in HD they switched to being on computers (as well as apple TV and some android arm boxes).
m
0
l
!