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Plugable USB 3.0 Powered Hub : The Good News is it Seems to like an iMac

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I recently posted up a thread in which I explained how my previous USB 2.0 Powered hub didn’t seem to like my new 2013 iMac and it was subsequently returned, and that I was on the look out for a replacement…

https://tbni.blog/2013/10/18/d-link-usb-2-0-7-port-hub-unboxing-important-mac-related-notes/

Well after a little searching I felt I may have found that replacement, and at this early stage it does indeed seem that I have.

So if you are a late 2012 or late 2013 iMac owner who has had issues with USB hubs not being able to cope then one worth trying for you is the ‘Plugable’ Powered USB 3.0 HUB. I picked it up on Amazon.co.uk for about £30.

For reference I currently have a 500Gb Portable USB 3.0 drive, a 1TB Portable USB 3.0 drive, and a powered 3TB USB 3.0 plugged into the rear of my iMac along with this 7 Port Powered Hub. In the HUB I have had running without any issues whatsoever a 320Gb Powered Drive and a further 1TB Powered drive (These are both USB 2.0). I have also had at the same time my iPhone 5s and iPad (3rd Generation) syncing and iPhoto pulling photos off my Panasonic TZ30 digital camera as well as my GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition.

Now admittedly there is a lot going on here on here and much more than I usually would be doing at one one time, but it was a good way to test the hub. The results were ‘two thumbs up’ everything worked away doing its thing, without any drive drop outs or apparently power problems. (My previous HUB failed on simply having the 2 external drives plugged into it).

So all in all after over a weeks use the HUB is yet to experience any issues or give me any problems. A firmware update is available however it must be done from a Windows machine. I have not at this stage completed this firmware upgrade as things are working well, and as the man says, ‘If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.’

One little superstition I did carry out was before I plugged in any USB 2.0 devices into the HUB was I allowed each port to mount a USB 3.0 drive. I don’t know if this is a requirement, and to be honest I doubt very much it is, however it is something I and my colleagues always do with USB 3.0 ports – mount a USB 3.0 device first. The legend goes it lets the port know it is a 3.0 rather than getting locked in at 2.0 speeds.

So there you have it, if you are experiencing iMac related USB HUB issues this may well be the HUB worth trying, (one final thought is that the blue LEDs can be rather bright at night, so make sure you have some black electrical tape to cover them up).

Plugable USB 3.0 Powered HUB Unboxing Gallery :

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Late 2013 Apple iMac UnBoxing

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About 3 months ago I had a great setup for my computer needs, namely an early 2011 i7 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro with a Apple Cinema display for my desktop requirements.

As my requirements changed I decided it was time for a change in the computer. Now as any Apple user knows, ‘when you go Mac, you don’t go back,’ so it was time to upgrade. The rumour mill was going mad online of a new iMac coming at the end of August. I seen it is a good time to change. So towards the end of July I sold my MBP and Cinema Display set up and squirrel’d the money away to patiently wait on the imminent product refresh from Apple.

The end of August came, and no iMac refresh came. Then along came the iPhone announcement and its subsequent release on 20th September 2013. No new iMac. During this time life without a computer was pretty tough. I did get myself a Netbook to cope with the emergencies and the iPad was worked hard until 24th September 2013 when Apple announced the iMac refresh : http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/09/24Apple-Updates-iMac.html

Finally time to get my hands on this beast.  I decided to bit of maxing out of the specs in order to get a long life out of it.  As it was a custom build it had to be ordered online, the delivery time was given to me as some stage on 11th October 2013.

It was this date that it arrived.  Delivered by UPS, whom I found to be bound down by red tape in relation to their deliveries but that is an entirely different story!

Anyway the iMac was here and specc’d as follows :

Specifications

  • 3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
  • 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2X4GB
  • 1TB Fusion Drive
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5
  • Magic Trackpad
  • Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) & User’s Guide
  • Accessory Kit

So with this spec I decided to max out the processor, the graphics and take on a Fusion Drive (some nifty technology that combines a standard spinning hard drive and some flash memory – the storage capacity of a HDD, with the speed of an SSD).  I stuck with 8Gb of RAM as this is user upgradable, and much cheaper to do yourself than having it done in the factory.

Having only been using the machine for a week I am already hugely impressed, the Fusion Drive seems as capable as the SSD I had in my MBP, the speed of regular tasks is supreme, I have done a little video editing (for the FAKE Otterbox video posted 2 posts earlier) and the speed of conversion was breath taking in comparison to what I was used too.  I have a couple of USB 3.0 external drives connected and they are super sharp in relation to the USB 2 speeds I had been working with.  The 27″ screen needs no comment other than ‘STUNNING!’

As yet I haven’t really pushed any aspect of this machine, I am looking forward to playing about with some GoPro footage to see how the graphics card handles some HD editing.  It was this sort of tasking that my old machine had started to splutter.

So in what is ultimately a very quick initial thoughts posting I am massively impressed with this machine, it was expensive, but I can see this being an investment that I will continue to enjoy for many years.

Oh and of course I got AppleCare, something I have never had to use thankfully, but anyone who I know that has can not sing its praises highly enough.

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