long usb

Mike12086 · 05-22-2007, 05:41 PM

hey everyone,
done some searching and reading but still have questions. has anyone run a passive 20-22 foot usb cable to a powered hub? and if so did you run into any problems? this is what i need to do and since i plan to have my main media drive connected to it i have to find the best solution to this. now the hub will have its own power running from a molex on the computer. just wondering if it would be better to do 2 shorter cables with another powered hub in between or use one of those active usb extensions?
thanks for any help
mike

RedGTiVR6 · 05-22-2007, 05:54 PM

16' is generally the longest unpowered recomended. All you can do is try it in the house first....but I'm going to guess it's going to be hit or miss if it does work.

nobb · 05-22-2007, 06:25 PM

If it doesnt work at home, chances are it wont work in the car. However, even if it does work at home, it might not work in the car since the car is a noisy place. I am running a DIY 7 meter long usb extension. By DIY, I mean I bought a bulk piece of cat5e (accidentally bought the non twisted kind) and soldered all the usb connectors myself. It worked fine for me, but results will vary.

Mike12086 · 05-22-2007, 06:35 PM

so do you think my better solution would be the active repeater cable or the short passive cable into active hub to passive cable into final active hub?

nobb · 05-22-2007, 07:10 PM

Is cost an issue? An active repeater cable will probably yield best results. My theory on adding a hub to the end(dont know if its true, but makes logical sense to me): Adding a hub to the end might actually make it worse, as there may be more information being transfered (more devices can be connected). All this information presents a greater opportunity for interference and may degrade the quality of the individual signals.

In summary, adding a hub to the end will either not change how much data loss you get, or increase data loss. If you are already losing data from a long usb cable, a hub wont make it better because the data is already lost once it reaches the hub. The only benefit I see to adding a hub at the end is that you can add more devices close to the driver, as well as boosting the usb voltage. But dont think data loss is a bad thing. Data is lost all the time (usb, internet)...but your hardware and software error correction will take care of that. Lost information will just be sent again.

Before you spend all your money into getting a repeater or a hub...maybe you should first try running the passive cable first. At ~6 meters (22 foot), you probably will be getting more data loss (especially if its unsheilded) vs running a normal usb cable. But other than slowing down the rate of data transfer, you probably wont notice anything due to error correction.

Mike12086 · 05-22-2007, 08:30 PM

well this is what i need/have...there is about 20-22 ft between the compuer and up front where the hub will be. the hub will be a powered one that is connected to a 200 gb hard drive with all my media on it, the touchscreen, a bluetooth adaptor, game controllers, and gps eventually. so i figure either just one long cable or a extender/repeater would work...the only reason i'm worried about loss is because of the media drive.