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Which USB 3.0 Hub? [MERGED]

Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,388
12,500
I'd like to pass along some information from my archives (I saved this from the macintouch.com web site) regarding possible conflicts between El Capitan and some USB hubs.

I can't confirm any of this (don't have any USB3 hubs myself) -- just passing this info along:
=============
James Katt
I held off on upgrading my MacBook Pro 15 Retina to OS X 10.11 El Capitan because it is my work computer. I finally was forced to upgrade this past weekend after several app developers decided to only support OS X 10.11 for their apps.

Generally things worked well except for the USB 3.0 ports and the printer driver to my Lexmark T640 - and these problems drive me nuts.

In 10.11, an Apple engineer completely rewrote the USB drivers. The new drivers appear to employ the use of ACPI to a much greater extent than the previous drivers. The drivers use ACPI to obtain information about which ports are active. Often, this information is wrong and needs to be updated. But rather than update the information about what ports are active to correct the situation, Apple failed to do so. This is the bug.

In fact, this bug even prevented Apple's own Macs from working. So another Apple engineer rather than correct the bug, decided to hack OS X by creating a port injector to override the DSDT so that Macs could work. But this solution does not work for external USB 3.0 hubs.

The limitation that the new USB driver leaves us is that each external USB 3.0 hub needs one controller chip for every 4 USB 3.0 ports. Only a few external USB 3.0 hubs do this - such as the Plugable 7-Port USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Hub with 25W Power Adapter and Two Ports with BC 1.2 Charging Support.

So as a result of this driver bug, the vast majority of external USB 3.0 hubs with more than 4 ports fail.
 
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Richdmoore

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
1,956
355
Troutdale, OR
Fishrrman said:
I'd like to pass along some information from my archives (I saved this from the macintouch.com web site) regarding possible conflicts between El Capitan and some USB hubs.

I can't confirm any of this (don't have any USB3 hubs myself) -- just passing this info along:
=============
James Katt
I held off on upgrading my MacBook Pro 15 Retina to OS X 10.11 El Capitan because it is my work computer. I finally was forced to upgrade this past weekend after several app developers decided to only support OS X 10.11 for their apps.

Generally things worked well except for the USB 3.0 ports and the printer driver to my Lexmark T640 - and these problems drive me nuts.

In 10.11, an Apple engineer completely rewrote the USB drivers. The new drivers appear to employ the use of ACPI to a much greater extent than the previous drivers. The drivers use ACPI to obtain information about which ports are active. Often, this information is wrong and needs to be updated. But rather than update the information about what ports are active to correct the situation, Apple failed to do so. This is the bug.

In fact, this bug even prevented Apple's own Macs from working. So another Apple engineer rather than correct the bug, decided to hack OS X by creating a port injector to override the DSDT so that Macs could work. But this solution does not work for external USB 3.0 hubs.

The limitation that the new USB driver leaves us is that each external USB 3.0 hub needs one controller chip for every 4 USB 3.0 ports. Only a few external USB 3.0 hubs do this - such as the Plugable 7-Port USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Hub with 25W Power Adapter and Two Ports with BC 1.2 Charging Support.

So as a result of this driver bug, the vast majority of external USB 3.0 hubs with more than 4 ports fail.
Click to expand...

I haven’t noticed any issues with my 10 port USB 3.0 hub.
 
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S

swamyg1

macrumors regular
Dec 11, 2007
234
76
Richdmoore said:
I haven’t noticed any issues with my 10 port USB 3.0 hub.
Click to expand...
Fishrrman said:
I'd like to pass along some information from my archives (I saved this from the macintouch.com web site) regarding possible conflicts between El Capitan and some USB hubs.

I can't confirm any of this (don't have any USB3 hubs myself) -- just passing this info along:
=============
James Katt
I held off on upgrading my MacBook Pro 15 Retina to OS X 10.11 El Capitan because it is my work computer. I finally was forced to upgrade this past weekend after several app developers decided to only support OS X 10.11 for their apps.

Generally things worked well except for the USB 3.0 ports and the printer driver to my Lexmark T640 - and these problems drive me nuts.

In 10.11, an Apple engineer completely rewrote the USB drivers. The new drivers appear to employ the use of ACPI to a much greater extent than the previous drivers. The drivers use ACPI to obtain information about which ports are active. Often, this information is wrong and needs to be updated. But rather than update the information about what ports are active to correct the situation, Apple failed to do so. This is the bug.

In fact, this bug even prevented Apple's own Macs from working. So another Apple engineer rather than correct the bug, decided to hack OS X by creating a port injector to override the DSDT so that Macs could work. But this solution does not work for external USB 3.0 hubs.

The limitation that the new USB driver leaves us is that each external USB 3.0 hub needs one controller chip for every 4 USB 3.0 ports. Only a few external USB 3.0 hubs do this - such as the Plugable 7-Port USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Hub with 25W Power Adapter and Two Ports with BC 1.2 Charging Support.

So as a result of this driver bug, the vast majority of external USB 3.0 hubs with more than 4 ports fail.
Click to expand...

Wow. No wonder my older Anker super speed hub didn't work, along with the brand new Hootoo and the Anker 10 port I ordered from Amazon.

That's a pretty royal malfunction by Apple. Hope it gets resolved soon. I may just purchase that Plugable hub!
 
Richdmoore

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
1,956
355
Troutdale, OR
swamyg1 said:
Wow. No wonder my older Anker super speed hub didn't work, along with the brand new Hootoo and the Anker 10 port I ordered from Amazon.

That's a pretty royal malfunction by Apple. Hope it gets resolved soon. I may just purchase that Plugable hub!
Click to expand...

Here is what I am using (no issues with El Capitan):
http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/630

If someone wants to post how to test and see that the hub has issues or not, I am sure many of us here would be happy to run the test and report the results.
 
M

mac2thefuture

macrumors 65816
May 15, 2007
1,106
30
Lancashire, North West, UK
Hi, i'm interested in getting the 2016 Macbook and would have a need to deliver presentations from it. These would be either via Powerpoint/Keynote/Prezi. My concern is the lack of ports so i wondered if anyone could recommend an adapter that could offer both HDMI and VGA, independently or together on one adapter? Thanks in advance.

Sorry, will move to a more appropriate thread - thanks
 
Last edited:
K

kart

macrumors regular
Jul 16, 2011
198
91
AU
Has anyone found a usb c hub that is portable and can power 2tb and higher portable hard rives? I purchased the USB C hub from hyperdrive, to find that it does have enough power to get the hard drive spinning, however works fine when I have the usb c also plugged into the Hub for through charging. I am very dissapointed in the hub, especially as this was NOT stated on their website. Great design and ports, but the fact that I can't use my 2tb portably is very sad. The genuine Apple USB c to USB adaptor works fine with the 2tb but I need something that I can put more then 1 USB in and that also offers the through charging.
 
M

Mikel30

macrumors member
Jan 11, 2004
89
24
Has anyone purchased one of the Apple USB C Digital AV Multiport Adapters from eBay? They're quite a bit cheaper on there, but I'm paranoid of getting fake parts. Wondering if there's any chance they're actually authentic.
 
N

nicwilson

macrumors newbie
May 28, 2010
11
0
Richdmoore said:
I haven’t noticed any issues with my 10 port USB 3.0 hub.
Click to expand...

Easy to test, run system profiler, click on USB, if you hub is shown as a USB 3.0 you are ok, if its seen as a USB2.0 then you will have the issues everyone else is having.

NicW
 
M

meiusermanme

Suspended
Jun 27, 2015
84
17
I'm using this USB C Hub, HooToo Shuttle 3.1 Type C Hub with Power Delivery for Charging. This is exactly what I was looking for so I'm happy with it.
51lpHR%2BPZxL._SL200_.jpg
 
caligurl

caligurl

macrumors 68040
Jun 8, 2009
3,647
1,532
socal
What's the best USB hub to plug in multiple external hard drives? My current iMac is only 2.0, but I plan to update by the end of the year... so I do want a 3.0 capable hub.

2 of the hard drives will have my movies that I am currently in the process of ripping from DVD's, so they need to be plugged in so we can watch them whenever we want and not have to worry about running to the computer to plug in the hard drive. At least one other will have photos, workout videos and other misc stuff. As they are accessed often, I want them plugged in all the time. This hard drive gets accessed daily to stream the workout videos to apple TV.
 
YatBob

YatBob

macrumors 6502
Apr 23, 2014
268
73
Louisiana
I have one and tried using 2 self powered drives and it would repeatedly eject the drives, not sure how it would work with external powered
 
AndyK

AndyK

macrumors 65816
Jan 10, 2008
1,025
377
Terra
I picked up one of these, it looks good and is performing well for app testing through Xcode to multiple iPhones and iPads connected to it.
 
C

carestudio

macrumors 6502a
Aug 6, 2008
653
164
HiFiGuy528 said:
So many cheap or low quality USB-C hubs on the web that "supports" charging, but we really don't know how its done. There are no mentions of USB-C certification. I
Click to expand...

Agree, not just that, I read an article about power budget design on the USB hub
http://crazydiamondstar.blogspot.com/2016/02/intermittent-drop-out-usb-thunderbolt.html
looks like many cheap units made in China are missing the most basic and fundamental things from design phase. we should avoid these units....
 
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