Limits of USB hubs.

I have been using these in the past.....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...n-card-ac21072
....but these can't be used with NUCs.

I'm looking at this as an alternative....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...iABEgKDDvD_BwE
....though this seems too good to be true.

What is the limit of this latter 15-hub device and will it overtax the
NUC

On Tue, 21 May 2019 12:14:36 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have been using these in the past.....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...n-card-ac21072
...but these can't be used with NUCs.

I'm looking at this as an alternative....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...iABEgKDDvD_BwE
...though this seems too good to be true.

What is the limit of this latter 15-hub device and will it overtax the
NUC

Did you ask this question at MWAVE ?

On Tue, 21 May 2019 13:10:41 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Tue, 21 May 2019 12:14:36 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have been using these in the past.....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...n-card-ac21072
...but these can't be used with NUCs.

I'm looking at this as an alternative....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...iABEgKDDvD_BwE
...though this seems too good to be true.

What is the limit of this latter 15-hub device and will it overtax the
NUC

Did you ask this question at MWAVE ?

No.

Peter Jason wrote:
On Tue, 21 May 2019 13:10:41 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Tue, 21 May 2019 12:14:36 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have been using these in the past.....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...n-card-ac21072
...but these can't be used with NUCs.

I'm looking at this as an alternative....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...iABEgKDDvD_BwE
...though this seems too good to be true.

What is the limit of this latter 15-hub device and will it overtax the
NUC
Did you ask this question at MWAVE ?

No.

Use 3pcs latest VLI812
With 12V 8A Power Input

It seems to come with its own power adapter,
which is further converted inside the unit.

Via Labs changed their name at some point, so the
parts are either labeled VL or VLI.

VL812
https://www.via-labs.com/product_show.php?id=41

It's hard to see how it can use "3pcs". It
really needs "more pcs". I labeled one port as a "Daisy Chain"
port, because it's "one chip less deep" than the other ports.

Input
|
Good VLI812
For | | | | Charge ports
Daisy --+ | | +---------------+ No data on these
| +-------+ | |
| | | +
VLI812 VLI812 VLI812 / \
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |

The power adapter stated, has a different size than
the adapter listed for it on Newegg. Newegg lists a
60W adapter, whereas your advert lists 98W. Which means
it won't be loading the NUC, from a DC perspective. It
converts the 12V input, into 5V and lower voltages
inside the hub.

There is a limit to how many hubs "deep" a tree of USB
can be. The "fanout" rate is limited by the "width" of the
chips used. Since the nine pin USB3 interface has USB2 signals
on it, the USB2 hub limits likely apply and fix the "depth"
of chips allowed. Your Orico product has a "depth of two", so there
are limits how many "hubs connected to hubs" you could do,
within the five hub deep limit. Sometimes the motherboard
counts as one hub, leaving four.

https://acroname.com/blog/why-cant-i...ices-my-system

That means, the limit using this product, would be like this. The
5-hub-deep limit is expended like this. The NUC chip likely counts
as a hub (Intel started doing that about seven or eight years ago).
Each Orico has two chips in a row, so counts as "2 hubs deep".

1 NUC
|
2 Orico
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| +--------+
| |
2 Orico Orico
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|
USBkey

The diagram is intended to show the "max depth" using the
Orico hub, since the Orico hub is "2 deep" on twelve of the
ports. The fact the thirteenth port is "1 deep", doesn't help
us a whole lot in terms of fanout.

Expect a limit of around 100 output ports max. So even if
using two levels of Orico hubs, rather than getting 169 ports,
the OS runs out of "enumeration resources" before that
happens. The USB tree needs "address bits" to select ports,
and will run out of steam before you get to 169.

*******

If you buy *one* of these Orico boxes, I don't expect
any surprises whatsoever.

If you bought two of the boxes, I would make each of them
connect to a separate port on the NUC, for best results.
This helps if you put peripherals that happen to have their
own hub inside.

When using active extension cables ["rptr"] (I have three cables),
count as one hub each. If you want the max cable reach off
the NUC, you'd again, use a separate port off the NUC
and run your cables from there. In this diagram, each
repeater comes with 16 feet (5 meters) of cable, so if
you're lucky, maybe gives the NUC an "80 foot reach"
for some ridiculous project :-)

NUC ---- rptr ---- rptr ---- rptr ---- rptr ---- webcam
| |
| +----+
| |
Orico Orico

Technology exists, to change the PHY layer for extending USB,
so you're not limited to 80 feet. It's the cost that is an
issue. If you wanted to go a thousand feet, maybe it costs
a thousand bucks. That sort of thing.

Paul

On Tue, 21 May 2019 03:37:15 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Peter Jason wrote:
On Tue, 21 May 2019 13:10:41 +1000, Monty wrote:

On Tue, 21 May 2019 12:14:36 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have been using these in the past.....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...n-card-ac21072
...but these can't be used with NUCs.

I'm looking at this as an alternative....
https://www.mwave.com.au/product/ori...iABEgKDDvD_BwE
...though this seems too good to be true.

What is the limit of this latter 15-hub device and will it overtax the
NUC
Did you ask this question at MWAVE ?

No.

Use 3pcs latest VLI812
With 12V 8A Power Input

It seems to come with its own power adapter,
which is further converted inside the unit.

Via Labs changed their name at some point, so the
parts are either labeled VL or VLI.

VL812
https://www.via-labs.com/product_show.php?id=41

It's hard to see how it can use "3pcs". It
really needs "more pcs". I labeled one port as a "Daisy Chain"
port, because it's "one chip less deep" than the other ports.

Input
|
Good VLI812
For | | | | Charge ports
Daisy --+ | | +---------------+ No data on these
| +-------+ | |
| | | +
VLI812 VLI812 VLI812 / \
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |

The power adapter stated, has a different size than
the adapter listed for it on Newegg. Newegg lists a
60W adapter, whereas your advert lists 98W. Which means
it won't be loading the NUC, from a DC perspective. It
converts the 12V input, into 5V and lower voltages
inside the hub.

There is a limit to how many hubs "deep" a tree of USB
can be. The "fanout" rate is limited by the "width" of the
chips used. Since the nine pin USB3 interface has USB2 signals
on it, the USB2 hub limits likely apply and fix the "depth"
of chips allowed. Your Orico product has a "depth of two", so there
are limits how many "hubs connected to hubs" you could do,
within the five hub deep limit. Sometimes the motherboard
counts as one hub, leaving four.

https://acroname.com/blog/why-cant-i...ices-my-system

That means, the limit using this product, would be like this. The
5-hub-deep limit is expended like this. The NUC chip likely counts
as a hub (Intel started doing that about seven or eight years ago).
Each Orico has two chips in a row, so counts as "2 hubs deep".

1 NUC
|
2 Orico
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| +--------+
| |
2 Orico Orico
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|
USBkey

The diagram is intended to show the "max depth" using the
Orico hub, since the Orico hub is "2 deep" on twelve of the
ports. The fact the thirteenth port is "1 deep", doesn't help
us a whole lot in terms of fanout.

Expect a limit of around 100 output ports max. So even if
using two levels of Orico hubs, rather than getting 169 ports,
the OS runs out of "enumeration resources" before that
happens. The USB tree needs "address bits" to select ports,
and will run out of steam before you get to 169.

*******

If you buy *one* of these Orico boxes, I don't expect
any surprises whatsoever.

If you bought two of the boxes, I would make each of them
connect to a separate port on the NUC, for best results.
This helps if you put peripherals that happen to have their
own hub inside.

When using active extension cables ["rptr"] (I have three cables),
count as one hub each. If you want the max cable reach off
the NUC, you'd again, use a separate port off the NUC
and run your cables from there. In this diagram, each
repeater comes with 16 feet (5 meters) of cable, so if
you're lucky, maybe gives the NUC an "80 foot reach"
for some ridiculous project :-)

NUC ---- rptr ---- rptr ---- rptr ---- rptr ---- webcam
| |
| +----+
| |
Orico Orico

Technology exists, to change the PHY layer for extending USB,
so you're not limited to 80 feet. It's the cost that is an
issue. If you wanted to go a thousand feet, maybe it costs
a thousand bucks. That sort of thing.

Paul

Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.

The little NUC computer is very fast & does a 300GB Macrium backup to
an SSD at 1.7GB/sec.

Peter Jason wrote:


Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.

The little NUC computer is very fast & does a 300GB Macrium backup to
an SSD at 1.7GB/sec.

Now, that *is* amazing. I'm lucky here, that even with
ideal source and dest, I can get 300MB/sec. It's probably
the checksum step (used to allow "verifying" the backup
later), which is expensive to do. Something on your
processor is good at that.

Paul

On Wed, 22 May 2019 17:58:29 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Peter Jason wrote:


Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.

It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.





The little NUC computer is very fast & does a 300GB Macrium backup to
an SSD at 1.7GB/sec.

Now, that *is* amazing. I'm lucky here, that even with
ideal source and dest, I can get 300MB/sec. It's probably
the checksum step (used to allow "verifying" the backup
later), which is expensive to do. Something on your
processor is good at that.

Paul

On Mon, 27 May 2019 07:31:27 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2019 17:58:29 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Peter Jason wrote:


Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.

It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.



Glad to hear that, but let me ask a question, just out of curiosity.
Why do you need so many USB ports? Under what circumstances do you
have so many things plugged into them?

I have 7 USB ports on my computer case--four in the back and three in
the front. Two in the back are always in use (keyboard and mouse) and
I sometimes use one other for am external hard or thumb drive. I can't
remember ever using more.

Ken Blake wrote:
On Mon, 27 May 2019 07:31:27 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2019 17:58:29 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Peter Jason wrote:

Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.
It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.



Glad to hear that, but let me ask a question, just out of curiosity.
Why do you need so many USB ports? Under what circumstances do you
have so many things plugged into them?

I have 7 USB ports on my computer case--four in the back and three in
the front. Two in the back are always in use (keyboard and mouse) and
I sometimes use one other for am external hard or thumb drive. I can't
remember ever using more.

I've had two USB3 keys on the back of mine at the
same time, but not for key-to-key transfer. That's about
as much stuff as I use at any one time for USB3.

I do have USB3 enclosures I could connect, and I have
enough materials to use five USB3 ports at the same time.
But I have no "reasonable" use case for that. I have
done "backups" before, using a 3.5" hard drive and
an external USB3 open casing, but that only uses
just the one USB3 port, well within the limits of the
ports on the back of the computer.

While you could keep a ****-load of 3.5" enclosures
running off USB3 ports, that's also a lot of power
adapters to be plugged into the wall. I already have
a christmas tree just for the networking stuff, so
adding a second "tree" for storage devices would be out
of the question.

Usually, the "things bumping into one another on the
back of the computer", is a reason to not manage
everything with external ports. Too messy. Hard drives
go inside the box, on case-opening-facing sliders.

The interior case cabling is still horrible though.
It's hard getting the door closed, without pinching
something. You need right-angle cable ends for this
kind of setup. So the SATA cable may have different
style connectors on either end (straight for motherboard,
right angle for disk drive end). The right-angle
connectors "feel right" for this purpose, whereas they're
miserable in setups where a straight one was the right
solution. It means stocking both kinds of cables, depending
on which computer you're using at the time.

http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/antec..._closeup.jp g

You can keep your storage in a NAS, but where is
the fun in that ? Local storage gives better access
to "health" information.

Paul

In article , Ken Blake
wrote:


It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.

Glad to hear that, but let me ask a question, just out of curiosity.
Why do you need so many USB ports? Under what circumstances do you
have so many things plugged into them?

I have 7 USB ports on my computer case--four in the back and three in
the front. Two in the back are always in use (keyboard and mouse) and
I sometimes use one other for am external hard or thumb drive. I can't
remember ever using more.

everyone will have different needs, but for me:

keyboard
two external usb hard drives
two hard drive docks for bare drives
usb-lightning cable to charge/sync ios devices
usb-microusb cable to charge/sync android devices
multiformat memory card reader
ups backup
yubikey

additional usb ports for occasional use devices such as a colorimeter,
usb stick, etc., without needing to plug/unplug anything.

In article , Paul
wrote:

You can keep your storage in a NAS, but where is
the fun in that ?

a lot of fun, especially when its total capacity is 40-50 terabytes or
more.

it's even more fun when the nas is set up to be a private cloud and/or
makes full use of the various available apps, particularly docker
containers.

what's not fun is the time it takes for a full backup, although once
that's done, incrementals are not a problem.

Local storage gives better access
to "health" information.

no it doesn't.

a nas constantly monitors drive health and can send an alert if there's
any issue, via email, phone or just beeping a lot.

synology nases have additional support for seagate ironwolf drives.

On Sun, 26 May 2019 14:40:49 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Mon, 27 May 2019 07:31:27 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2019 17:58:29 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Peter Jason wrote:


Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.

It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.



Glad to hear that, but let me ask a question, just out of curiosity.
Why do you need so many USB ports? Under what circumstances do you
have so many things plugged into them?

1/ A ticket printer for small labels.
2/ A thumb drive for dedicated daily Access10 backups.
3/ A DVD-platter printer for movies.
4/ A 500GB SSD for daily Macrium image system-backups.
5/ A mobile phone charger (on one of the charging USBs.)
6/ A sundry HDD dock for movie downloads.
7/ An IDE HDD dock
8/ A "probox" 8xHDD external storage.
the rest spare for now.


I have 7 USB ports on my computer case--four in the back and three in
the front. Two in the back are always in use (keyboard and mouse) and
I sometimes use one other for am external hard or thumb drive. I can't
remember ever using more.

On Sun, 26 May 2019 18:37:22 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Ken Blake
wrote:


It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.

Glad to hear that, but let me ask a question, just out of curiosity.
Why do you need so many USB ports? Under what circumstances do you
have so many things plugged into them?

I have 7 USB ports on my computer case--four in the back and three in
the front. Two in the back are always in use (keyboard and mouse) and
I sometimes use one other for am external hard or thumb drive. I can't
remember ever using more.

everyone will have different needs, but for me:

keyboard
two external usb hard drives
two hard drive docks for bare drives
usb-lightning cable to charge/sync ios devices
usb-microusb cable to charge/sync android devices
multiformat memory card reader
ups backup
yubikey

additional usb ports for occasional use devices such as a colorimeter,
usb stick, etc., without needing to plug/unplug anything.

The Intel NUC has mouse/keyboard sockets, plus a microcard one. Plus
a "Thunderbolt" socket for the future, powering a SurfacePro-style
"Hub"

I must say I'm glad to be rid of those wretched Sata data cables of
the desktop machine, and those pestiferous festooning Molex chain
power contrivances. Free at last!

On Mon, 27 May 2019 09:17:24 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Sun, 26 May 2019 14:40:49 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Mon, 27 May 2019 07:31:27 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2019 17:58:29 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Peter Jason wrote:


Thanks, I have ordered one, and I'll report back.

It was delivered last week. It's about a foot long and looks well
made in brushed aluminium. Sadly it comes with a separate transformer
instead of the combo with the wall plug, so adding to desk clutter.
Dust is a concern so I use it on its side. I have plugged in many
external HDDs & thumb drives and their performance is unaltered from
previously. So far so good.



Glad to hear that, but let me ask a question, just out of curiosity.
Why do you need so many USB ports? Under what circumstances do you
have so many things plugged into them?

1/ A ticket printer for small labels.
2/ A thumb drive for dedicated daily Access10 backups.
3/ A DVD-platter printer for movies.
4/ A 500GB SSD for daily Macrium image system-backups.
5/ A mobile phone charger (on one of the charging USBs.)
6/ A sundry HDD dock for movie downloads.
7/ An IDE HDD dock
8/ A "probox" 8xHDD external storage.
the rest spare for now.



OK, we're all different. To me, most of those things would be used one
at a time and I wouldn't have them all plugged in at once.

But I'll make two comments:

1. I never charge my phone in a USB port. It's much faster to plug it
into a wall power outlet.

2. If you keep your backup drives plugged in all the time, as far as
I'm concerned you're taking an unnecessary risk. It is always possible
that a user error, nearby lightning strike, virus attack, even theft
of the computer, can cause the loss of everything plugged in.

In article , Ken Blake
wrote:

But I'll make two comments:

1. I never charge my phone in a USB port. It's much faster to plug it
into a wall power outlet.

the only way to plug a phone into a wall power outlet is via a power
adapter, which has a usb port.

how fast the phone charges depends on how much power the usb port can
source and what is negotiated with the device, which can vary quite a
bit.

most computers can source 1-2a while most adapters are 1a (or less for
the cheapos), making the computer likely to be the fastest.

and then there's syncing data and app debugging, which is best done
with a usb cable (although wireless works reasonably well most of the
time), and app developers generally have more than one device connected
anyway.

2. If you keep your backup drives plugged in all the time, as far as
I'm concerned you're taking an unnecessary risk. It is always possible
that a user error, nearby lightning strike, virus attack, even theft
of the computer, can cause the loss of everything plugged in.

external drives are not always backup drives.

needing to connect a drive just to do a backup means it will be done
less often, and with a higher chance for error.

the risk of theft is independent of what's connected to the computer.
once thugs are inside the house, they'll take whatever looks good, plus
a stack of drives is a lot easier to carry than a large computer.