Powered USB hub requirements

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

I’m trying to connext an older 500GB “my passport” to a raspberry pi, using a powered USB hub.

The passport won’t power up. It clicks. The led does light up.
I guess this is a power issue. My powered hub power supply is a meager 1A. It needs to power both the passport and the raspberry pi. The latter used ~750mA. I cannot figure out what are the passport requirements.

Any suggestions, ideas etc?
I’d also considered some kind of a Y cable that will power the passport, and connect data to the passport, but could not assert that such a cable exists (and I’m not into soldering).

Thanks,
Dan

2

Older USB 2.0 WD Passport drives require ~500mA in order operate properly. USB 3.0 devices need even more energy (~900mA) to work.

3

Why does the hub need to power the Pi? Lack of sockets?

4

You might want to take a look at the WD PiDrive.

It’s specially designed to work with the Raspberry Pi. More importantly, have a look at the cable that comes with it.

Here’s some more information:

http://support.wdc.com/KnowledgeBase/answer.aspx?ID=12968

EDIT: I don’t know if the cable will work with a Passport or not (it’s designed for the PiDrive, but the drive does use a USB interface…), but it looks like the cable is being sold standalone now:

5

So a 1A powered hub should provide enough power for the drive?

6

I’m not looking to buy a new drive. The cable would have been a good idea, but my drive has a USB micro-B port, and not what this cable has.

7

Instead of 2 power supplies (one for the hub to power the drive, and one fr the pi), you use only one power supply and the hub powers both devices as well as connect their data ports.