Need a blu-ray drive for my desktop. Suggs?

[Cavebear]

I had six empty bays, added five USB 3.0 cards with five ports each. Haven't had to root around under the desk in quite a while.

When I expanded my USB capacity, I just bought a 24 port externally powered hub. $29.99 at the time at Newegg for a net gain of 23 ports. And, it'll move to the next PC real easy.

I have two of those, one on either upright on my hutch. Only twelve ports each, however.

Do those multi-port plugins work?  I'm considering buying one. What KIND of cables do they support? I originally typed "plugs"; tells you old I am, LOL!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

When I expanded my USB capacity, I just bought a 24 port externally powered hub. $29.99 at the time at Newegg for a net gain of 23 ports. And, it'll move to the next PC real easy.

I have two of those, one on either upright on my hutch. Only twelve ports each, however.

Do those multi-port plugins work?  I'm considering buying one.

The ones I use certainly do. Both are from "Orico", got 'em on Amazon.

[Cavebear]

I have two of those, one on either upright on my hutch. Only twelve ports each, however.

Do those multi-port plugins work?  I'm considering buying one.

The ones I use certainly do. Both are from "Orico", got 'em on Amazon.

Does it matter what the device type is.  I mean, does any port care if it comes from a printer or a camera? Of course assuming it fits.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Do those multi-port plugins work?  I'm considering buying one.

The ones I use certainly do. Both are from "Orico", got 'em on Amazon.

Does it matter what the device type is.  I mean, does any port care if it comes from a printer or a camera?  Of course assuming it fits.

Seamless performance so far, I haven't noticed any glitches or hitches. My computer recognizes my cell phone while it's charging on the bar.

[Cavebear]

The ones I use certainly do. Both are from "Orico", got 'em on Amazon.

Does it matter what the device type is.  I mean, does any port care if it comes from a printer or a camera?  Of course assuming it fits.

Seamless performance so far, I haven't noticed any glitches or hitches. My computer recognizes my cell phone while it's charging on the bar.

Good to understand...

[TheGentlemanBastard]

A single USB host controller can support up to 128 addresses. The controller uses address 0 by default, leaving 127 addresses available. Most motherboards these days are built with 2 USB host controllers allowing, theoretically, 254 devices to be plugged in. There are some caveats to this, however. Each external USB hub will count as at least 1 device for addressing, so if you plug your digital camera into a 4-port USB hub, you're attaching two devices. If you're attaching 4 devices to a 4-port hub, you're using 5 addresses. It gets more complicated when your hub gets above 7 ports, because the less expensive, therefore vastly more profitable, USB hub chipsets can only deal with 8 addresses, one for the chipset, and seven for attached devices. This is why 7- and 14-port hubs are relatively common in a world that functions on a base-2 counting system. So, you can plug 7, 14-port hubs into one 7-port hub, plugged into a single USB port and plug one more 7-port hub into the other port of the USB host controller for a total of 105 connected devices. You can do the same thing on the second USB host controller for a combined total of 210 connected devices. Of course, your USB ports will never be able to power all of those devices. They simply aren't designed for it. But, you can use externally powered hubs or externally powered devices and the data flow will be there. You can also add USB host controllers to available expansion slots. Motherboards vary greatly on the availability of these slots, but typically at least 1 and usually no more than 7, with each additional host supporting up to 127 devices regardless of how many ports they provide out the back of the case. There are some expansion cards that have 2 host controllers, so you can go to truly insane levels, but I've yet to meet anyone who needs even the full 127 available from a single host controller.

I do love when a motherboard advertises "USB 2.0 and 3.0" on their products. It means they're adding a host controller that no-one's going to need (the USB 2.0 controller) and upping the price for a "backwards compatibility feature" that's absolutely worthless. It's a requirement of the USB system that all host controllers be backward compatible to USB 1.0. That changed with the USB 4 specification released last August, only requiring that it be backward compatible to USB 2.0, but since USB 1.0 is fully incorporated into the USB 2.0 specification. the jury is out whether all USB 1.0 devices (for the very, very few still in use) will be fully functional.

Don't let the number of ports on a PC case or an add-on card fool you. A single host controller can be configured to provide 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, all the way up to 127 (and any number in between, usually in exponents of 2, though usually not more than 8 per controller) ports, but it's still a single controller.

As for the plugs (yes, they're still called that), there are dozens of types depending on USB specification and the whim of the manufacturer, but all of them utilize USB-A (except for some specialized USB-C connections) plugs to connect to the computer. It's part of the backward compatibility built into the USB specifications. No, the individual jacks won't give a shit what the device is. A printer, a phone, a digital camera, a USB monitor, whatever. The USB controller simply sees a data source/destination. It's up to the drivers installed on the OS to recognize the device and most of those are generic and pre-installed (or installed when the OS detects a particular type of device) these days.

TLDR:
Yes, those hubs work great. No, they don't care what's plugged into them. And, you can plug in a ton of shit. Just be sure to get externally powered hubs/devices if you're going to plug in a ton of shit.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Mine plug into the wall, that was a requirement. I'm on the verge of going black hole with my power consumption.

[Cheerful Charlie]

USB 2.0 on the mother board is usually meant for mice and key boards that are rarely USB 3.0 or USB C anyway. Some mother boards have a USB 3.0 header that use a back panel and cable to access.

[Cheerful Charlie]

When I expanded my USB capacity, I just bought a 24 port externally powered hub. $29.99 at the time at Newegg for a net gain of 23 ports. And, it'll move to the next PC real easy.

I have two of those, one on either upright on my hutch. Only twelve ports each, however.

Do those multi-port plugins work?  I'm considering buying one.  What KIND of cables do they support?  I originally typed "plugs"; tells you old I am, LOL!

Basically, there are two types of USB hubs.  USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.  USB 2.0 devices will work with either but a USB 3.0 device plugged into a USB 2.0 hub will not attain its full speed capacity.  Not all older computers have USB 3.0.  I have a small Anker USB. 3 hub that works great and is well built.  I have an older USB 2.0 hub for older USB thumb drives I have accumulated.

And to make life more exciting, there is USB 3.1 and USB 3.2  Faster and Greater.  Coming soon to a computer near you.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

USB 2.0 on the mother board is usually meant for mice and key boards that are rarely USB 3.0 or USB C anyway.  Some mother boards have a USB 3.0 header that use a back panel and cable to access.

This kinda goes to my point. The USB 2.0 controller is absolutely not necessary for 99.99999% of all systems. USB 2.0 mice and keyboards don't need it, but work just fine on USB 3.0 and with a single controller able to address 127 devices, the USB 2.0 controller is a waste of money, components and motherboard real estate.

USB 3.1 and 3.2?!? The USB 4.0 spec. was finalized last August. 40Gbit USB.

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yeah! But as I have USB 2.0 ports on my system, I use it for my USB 2.0 crap and use the remaining USB 3.0 ports for the good stuff like USB 3.0 SSDs, Hard Disks, and USB 3.0 flash drives. We cannot have enough USB ports. Ever so much better than the old days of SCSI.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Yeah!  But as I have USB 2.0 ports on my system, I use it for my USB 2.0 crap and use the remaining USB 3.0 ports for the good stuff like USB 3.0 SSDs, Hard Disks, and USB 3.0 flash drives.  We cannot have enough USB ports.  Ever so much better than the old days of SCSI.

Oh, yeah. I can relate to that. My motherboard has 2.0 and 3.0 controllers and headers for up to 8 USB 2.0 ports, but only a single 3.0 header to support just 2, 3.0 ports. I have all my older, slower stuff attached to 2.0, reserving the 3.0 for newer, faster devices. To me, that's just piss poor design, though. Just give me 8 USB 3.0 ports and completely eliminate the USB 2.0 controller. I'll be just fine with all my USB devices, regardless of specification, and you'll have more room on that motherboard for cleaner routing, better signal/noise management, or maybe some other cool feature you currently can't fit.

It's also arguable that some 2.0 devices work faster, if only marginally so, on a 3.0 bus. Because they don't have a data rate ceiling they can reach, they can fully max out. Will it be enough for Joe Computer User to notice? No, but data geeks like me will, even if we only know from third party monitoring software.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I went pure 3.0 to avoid having to remember which witch was which.