Haven’t had a chance to try any perms of connection yet - busy life! Probably not till tomorrow or Sunday, but I will report back ASAP, and appreciate everybody’s help greatly.
It could just be the Hub? Bit off-topic,but I got a TP-Link gigbit switch to use with a MyCloud NAS because it was eco friendly. The NIC in the MyCloud didn’t like the switch. the PHY link was going up and down more times than a champion yo-yoer can throw and retract their yo-yo so data throughput as abysmal. So, it could also be the hub.
Could be the cable. too. I got a second USB cable for a My Passport Wireless (MPW) and strangely, with this other cable the MPW would not negotiate higher than USB 2.0.
Right, I’ve just put the drive straight into the PCI card, and it’s running 3.0, as is the other drive I’ve plugged in there. I have on other 3.0 external, which is currently plugged into a 2.0 slot on the PC. Later, I will take out the Samsung drive in the 3.0 slot which, put the hub back in, and put my two Samsung drives back into the hub and see how they behave,
Thinking that if the Samsung drives both recognise 3.0, then it’s a problem with the WD drive. If not, then there’s a problem with the hub. That make sense?
WD are telling me to do a firmware upgrade, that the firmware might be the problem, but as it is sold as a 3.0 drive that sounds a bit flaky to me. Should I upgrade anyway?
If a direct connection says the WD is USB3, then the drive is USB3 and it’s the hub that’s at fault. The only differentiator may be that the Samsung drives take less current or something and so the hub can support them, but that still makes the hub the root cause for the problem (at least to my view).
You can easily test that by plugging in the hub and just the WD drive, and see if it reads as USB3. If it does, add one of the Samsungs (with the WD in-situ) and see if both read USB3, and if it does then add the second Samsung and check all three. If any of them drop to USB2 then it’s a current supply issue with the hub.
As to firmware upgrade, do the testing first and see. It’s one of those things where they’re sometimes only worth doing if there’s something wrong to require them (“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” stylie) but it’s up to your judgement whether this scenario dictates a firmware upgrade may be required…
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Darren,
Sounds good. The hub is powered, so would one not expect enough current for the devices (not an area of my expertise, such as it is!).
Thanks
Generally I would agree with you, but just because it’s powered doesn’t give it an unlimited current budget. Have a look at the power brick of the hub and see how much current it can supply, then using the information above work out how much current the drives are requiring.
Don’t forget that USB-powered HD drives take quite a bit more current than other USB peripherals like mice, keyboards and thumb drives. You may find that even being a powered hub isn’t enough if there’s not enough juice coming from the supply to keep several power-hungry devices happy.
Darren - sadly, electricity is a complete and total mystery to me! Can’t do without it, but I haven’t a clue how it works, what a volt, amp, or watt is, sadly. Practical things have always baffled me - as a teenager, pure maths was like a language I was born speaking. Practical maths - forget about it! Thanks, anyway, and when I get a chance to shift the drives about, I’ll report back.
Great forum here. So often one is used to a resounding silence after posting!
No harm in upgrading firmware, but take a backup of data you can’t afford
to lose before you do a firmware update.
Indeedy, a backup will be taken
The current and/or power should be written on the power supply, or perhaps on the hub itself if not. Power = voltage * current in case you only have power (voltage is either 220-240V if you’re in Europe, or 120V if you’re in the USA).
But you have a workable solution I think anyway, even if it’s just working around what the hub can and cannot support.
UK, so 220-240. And as you note, a workable solution. That drive I need higher transfer speeds on, as it is constant use as a dropbox folder, one of the others, used for OS & data backups, it’s not a problem if it drops to 2.0. But I will try other perms to see what happens.
Here’s what I sent to WD support, after trying a few other connection permutations.
It seems that the WD drives when attached to my hub, is recognised in some slots, and not in others. As I now have a workaround, and don’t really have the time to try all the various permutations of 3 USB 3.0 external drives, a s slot USB 3.0 PCI card, and a 7 slot USB 3.0 hub, I’m happy for this to be closed. If anything should crop up that is pertinent, I’ll open another ticket.
Thanks for your help
Jeremy
