USB 3.0 hub and its devices

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NUK3TH3WHAL35

NUK3TH3WHAL35

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I'm looking to get a USB 3.0 7 port hub. Now I have two 3.0 USB ports on the back of my tower, but my question is if I plug the USB 3.0 hub into one of the 2.0 USB ports will the hub be rendered to 2.0 speeds or will there likely be a driver for the hub that supersedes the 2.0 USB port turning it into a 3.0?

If that came off confusing then... will I get USB 3.0 speeds from USB 3.0 capable devices using a USB 3.0 hub plugged into a USB 2.0 port?
 
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Doing what you last proposed - that is, a USB3 hub plugged into a USB2 port (of a laptop), with the hub feeding USB3 devices, will only get you USB2 speeds, exactly as Barty1884 says. But you would get ONE advantage from that in SOME situations. This comes in the power supply area.

Besides speed, a significant difference is that a USB3 port can supply up to 0.9 amps to an external device, whereas USB2 could only give 0.5 amps. The most common place where that's important is in "External Laptop Drives". Many of these designed for USB2 systems came with special cables that had TWO USB plugs on one end. To get the drive to work, you have to plug BOTH of these into mobo (or hub) ports to get enough power. But now with new USB3 Laptop...
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NUK3TH3WHAL35

NUK3TH3WHAL35

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Oct 5, 2015
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Okay, so if say, I had a laptop that only had two 2.0 USB ports, I could NOT use a USB 3.0 hub to get 3.0 speeds from an external HDD? In that situation I'd be out of luck in utilizing USB 3.0 devices on said laptop?

 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Correct
 
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Paperdoc

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Doing what you last proposed - that is, a USB3 hub plugged into a USB2 port (of a laptop), with the hub feeding USB3 devices, will only get you USB2 speeds, exactly as Barty1884 says. But you would get ONE advantage from that in SOME situations. This comes in the power supply area.

Besides speed, a significant difference is that a USB3 port can supply up to 0.9 amps to an external device, whereas USB2 could only give 0.5 amps. The most common place where that's important is in "External Laptop Drives". Many of these designed for USB2 systems came with special cables that had TWO USB plugs on one end. To get the drive to work, you have to plug BOTH of these into mobo (or hub) ports to get enough power. But now with new USB3 Laptop Drives a cable with a single USB3 connector can plug into one USB3 port and get enough power.

So, IF your USB3 Hub is "powered" - that is, it comes with its own power supply "brick" that you use, and it does not take power from the host computer's USB2 (or 3) port, then any true USB3 Laptop Drive will be able to get enough power from a USB3 hub port to work, whereas it would NOT work if you simply plugged that drive into a USB2 port with insufficient power.
 
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