A Lot Of Peripherals, One USB Hub

[BraydenW]

I am buying a notebook and would like to use it as both a desktop and mobile solution. The problem I foresaw was having to connect and disconnect a lot of devices whenever I wanted to take the notebook somewhere. For example, the notebook may be plugged into some speakers, monitors, external hard drive, keyboard, mouse, etc. My solution to this problem, or so I'm thinking, is to buy a USB hub and plug as many peripherals as I can into that USB hub. Then switching the computer from desktop mode to mobile mode would only require unplugging the power adapter and USB hub. The problem with this is, will it work?

Some things I may have plugged into the USB hub are a keyboard, a mouse, an external hard drive, a USB to RJ45 adapter (maybe), a USB-to-VGA adapter connected to 19-inch wide screen monitor, and an external sound card connected to stereo speakers and microphone. My first question is will this even work? Will the various adapters be capable of functioning through a USB hub instead of being connected directly to the computer? My second question is how will all of these peripherals connected to one USB port affect performance their performance? Will having my display, sound, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, and internet all connected to one USB 2.0 port be unusably slow?

 

[americanaudiophile]

There are others on this site with a lot more experience than I do but I would say use a docking station/port replicator. This has it's own power supply so usb powered devices will not run our of juice. It will also add dedicated ports for many of your devices so you may not need as many usb ports.

 

[pitstop87]

If you have such an issue i could recommend another option:
You get to buy USB 2.0 PCMCIA expansion cards which are relatively cheap. This could help reduce the load on your single USB 2.0 port. That way you still have the mobility you require. Just remove the card when you need to be mobile.