28-port USB hub

Manhattan's aptly named Mondohub is a 28-port USB hub (24 USB 2.0, 4 USB 3.0). The last time I set up a new desk, I went hunting for some $BIGNUM-port hubs and they all seemed to cap out at 10 or 12. As a result, I've got a ton of daisy-chained, impossible-to-debug USB hubs on my desk, running the external HDDs, the cameras and mics, printer/scanner, chargers for various devices, keyboards, pointers, etc. This would make a big difference, though I'd be happy with a 100-port version, too.

28-port Usb Mondohub (via Red Ferret)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

Can’t infect the entire middle east with malware with just two USB ports.
Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston

I hear that if you plug one Mondohub into another Mondohub it breaks the Matrix.
- Jason Baker
  
  No, but it might break USB. Does anybody know how it is configured internally? Surely there must be some daisy-chaining. USB hubs can only be chained five deep, but if there’s any internal chaining in the device, that counts too. Plus, there’s that pesky 127 port max with USB…
  - digi_owl
    
    Dunno about that. But what i find interesting is that the bundled power supply do not seems capable of powering all the ports to the 500mA they are supposed to supply by spec.
    - Guysmiley
      
      14 amps (28 * 0.500) at 5 volts is only 70 watts, it looks to me like the supplied 110v 1.6 amp supply can handle that.
      - digi_owl
        
        So could there be a typo on the thinkgeek spage?
        
        “Output: 5 V / 4 A”
      - http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins
        
        14A seems like a lot for the connector pin on a standard USB connector to handle. Let alone if you have to run it through an adapter to a mini or micro USB. Frying a connector on a computer can make for a bad day.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

I certainly hope that you can chain them. Those 28 ports are going to fill up pretty fast …
http://memoid.tumblr.com/ memoid

But how much periphery can one person realistically accumulate? I mean, 8 to 10 devices, sure… but 28?! Talk about being a power user!
- Bart
  
  That sounds less like a power user and more like a hoarder to me.
  - Bad Juju
    
    Looking at my desk here at home, I count 15 and I’m probably missing a couple..
    monitor hub 1
    monitor hub 2
    printer/scanner
    photo printer
    zip drive (yes, really)
    external hd
    sd card reader
    webcam
    polycom communicator speakerphone
    phone charger
    usb key
    joystick
    mouse
    trackball
    keyboard
    
    And my stupid machine only has two usable USB ports, so a hub is vital.
    - Richard Dagenais
      
      lol trackball
      
      nerd!
xzzy

Too bad it only supplies the usb standard of 500mA to each port.. which means it ain’t going to be charging your iPad.

Finding hubs with the ~2.1 amps tablets need is still quite a challenge. They’re out there but are limited.. usually it’s just one port that has the higher rating.
jheiss

I wondered about this sort of thing when USB first came out. The protocol allows for 127 devices, but it seemed completely impractical to actually use anything more than a few. Nice to see that someone is finally building hardware that allows you to use a lot of devices.

That said, I have a 10 port Plugable hub (highly rated on Amazon) which more than meets my needs.
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  Power’s gonna be an issue. All of the current that this unit supplies has to come through one USB socket on the host device. if that can only supply 1A, as many are configured to prevent shorts, then 1A of current will be shared between 28 sockets on the Mondohub. That is unless Mondohub has its own external 5V PSU to provide more current.
  - digi_owl
    
    It is sold by Thinkgeek, and they list a 4A power supply. But that is still barely 100mA pr port, the minimum a USB port is supposed to supply without a handshake from the plugged in device.
SamSam

I really can’t possibly imagine what you are doing that needs so many usb devices plugged in at the same time. Can you elaborate further? The mind just boggles.

Also, it seems to me that this hub isn’t even self-powered, so it’s drawing all its power from the computer, is that right? If that’s the case, it won’t be able to charge more than a couple devices at a time.
- LinkMan
  
  Here’s my best guess:
  1 Keyboard
  2 Mouse
  3 Color Printer
  4 B&W Printer
  5 Scanner
  6 SD Card reader
  7 USB Missile Launcher
  8 iPhone charger
  9 iPad charger
  10-20 Webcams pointed at each of Cory’s goldfish
  21-28 Extra keyboards for each of his octopus’s eight arms
  - awjt
    
    and a USB partridge in a USB pear tree
  - DewiMorgan
    
    Here’re the UPS devices around my desk, which I consider fairly minimalist. No USB fans, toys or gimmicks. Starred items are plugged in at the moment.
    
    Input:
    1 – keyboard (wireless)
    2 – mouse (wireless)*
    3 – keyboard (wired, for laptop or when wireless batteries die)*
    4 – mouse (wired, for laptop or when wireless batteries die)
    5 – webcam*
    6 – scanner
    
    Output:
    7 – headphones (wireless)*
    8 – printer
    
    Drive repair equipment:
    9 – Serial adapter: 3.5V
    10 – Serial adapter: 5.0V
    11 – External hard drive caddy (2.5″ PATA)
    12 – External hard drive caddy (3.5″ PATA)
    13 – External hard drive caddy (SATA)
    
    Etc
    14 – UPS*
    15 – Modem
    16 – 3G dongle
    16-17 – Light
    18-X – Chargers for phone, etc (varying numbers).
    X-Y – Thumbdrives (varying numbers).
    Y-Z – External drives (varying numbers).
    Z-? – Other stuff I’m doubtless forgetting.
    
    Here’s the thing, though. My case has six ports. My laptop has four. So almost all of these are unplugged at any one time, and any time I need another device, I need to do the silly “plug it in backwards, turn the plug round, try again, realise I got it right the first time” dance that USB damns us to. I gave up on USB hubs years ago because I got sick of the strange blindness that hub manufacturers seemed to have, that dictated they only made four-port ones. What use is just three extra ports to me? Sure I could get *many* hubs, but each one means an extra wall-wart to power the thing (self-powered hubs were crap).
    
    It’s really nice to see someone making a hub that actually deserves the name “HUB”, rather than a mere “splitter”.
http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe

What’s the ‘S’ in USB stand for?

Oh, that’s right. It never worked that way, did it?
- awjt
  
  ”States”
  - zish
    
    Never knew that. That must mean that ‘B’ represents the velocity of light, squared.
- technobach
  
  http://xkcd.com/927/
  - http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe
    
    That, too.
    
    On further reflection, though, this sort of device would be a godsend to all five bands in the States that copy mp3 files onto USB flash drives and then leave them all over town for people to discover.
    - mccrum
      
      Are you telling me that people pick up strange USB drives off the ground and then stick them in their computers?
      
      I know I’m a weird security nut, but that just seems too trusting.
      - toyg
        
        How do you think Stuxnet and Flame were first introduced into Iran? INDIE ROCK WILL SAVE AMERICA
      - http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe
        
        A band in Charleston SC did it a couple of years ago, and as far as I know, no one thought about what could happen. But, you know, it’s Charleston SC and we’re at least ten years behind the curve on most things, so we just don’t know any better.
http://www.chazlarson.com chazlarson

The description says it includes a “HIGH-CAPACITY 4-AMP POWER ADAPTER”, so I’m not sure where the assumptions that it is self-powered are coming from.
- bcsizemo
  
  With the 5V at 14A this thing is going to need that’s going to be a big cable going into it.
  
  Honestly I’d rather seen the power supply placed inside with a standard PC power cord going to it. Same size cable I suppose, but then I don’t have to worry about misplacing another power brick.
Chuck

Now I’m imagining someone buying a bunch of those USB stick computers and trying to make a supercomputer with this thing.
- digi_owl
  
  Here is a video describing a pandaboard cluster used to compile ARM Ubuntu package, note his description of the power supply.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRWpuJRrTn4#t=1916s
Henry Pootel

All I can say is that the potential for a massive doggy hump fest with this thing is just awesome…

http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/index.php/digital_tokyo/articles/legs_everywhere_rejoice_as_dog_humps_usb_port_silly/
- digi_owl
  
  Thanks for the mental image…
http://twitter.com/cocktail_shaker The Mixologist

It *only* comes with a 4 amp power supply. If each of those 28 ports had a device drawing the port’s full 500mA rating, it would need a 14 Amp power supply.
- bcsizemo
  
  –err
  http://www.manhattan-products.com/en-US/products/9583-mondohub
  
  I’ve dealt with Manhattan products before…
  I don’t even know how they can say Up to 500 mA power, all ports and then only have a 20W input.
- celina192
  
  4Amps is no where near enough as quoting wikipedia “A unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and 150 mA in USB 3.0. A
  device may draw a maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) from a port in
  USB 2.0; 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0.” You’d need something near 16amps to cover them all probably more than that. Portable usb hard drives frequently pull around 500mA as I have found.
- J__M__M
  
  So, I imagine you dudes run, what, probably 4 gauge cable with all that current?
davnel

One thing to keep in mind; no matter how many ports on the device, you’re still sharing ONE 480Mb/S channel among all of the attached devices. At the 24-port level, irrespective of the power issue, the whole thing is gonna get slow.
- Loren Pechtel
  
  There are 4 USB 3.0 ports on it, you put your fast stuff on that. Besides, the proliferation of USB devices one ends up attaching are rarely used together all that much.
  
  I would not think you would run into a big deal with bandwidth but the power situation is another matter.
Keith Tyler

I wonder though how many power-pulling devices it can handle. Most I’ve seen crap out past around 4.
traalfaz

For those of us with more modest needs, I’ve grown fond of the Rosewill 10 port model. Most hubs come with wimpy power supplies, the Rosewill has I think a 4 amp supply for 10 ports. Since few people will be plugging in full load devices to all ports, 4 amps is generally plenty.

I’ve had tons of trouble with cheap USB hubs, one even blew a mainboard on me a couple of years ago. This thing sits and just works, no random disconnects or flaky behavior.

I’m generally not using more than one, maybe two devices at once, and in fact most of the time I’m just charging something from the ports. I plug one each of micro USB, mini USB, normal USB, and just leave them hang off the front of the desk, plugging in whatever I’m working with right then, be it an ebook reader or a logic analyzer. The rest of the ports host keyboard, scanner, sansa , webcam and a few others.
Richard Dagenais

Everyone is on about power, but I see a serious bottleneck issue in the single uplink.