USB 2.0 hub recommendations

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USB 2.0 hub recommendations

Post by grahamperrin » Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:34 am

From a ZEVO/ZFS perspective, should I favour or avoid any of the following?

Cerulian 7 port USB 2.0 triangular desktop hub
Maplin Electronics code N11JB

Cerulian 7 port USB 2.0 top loading hub
Maplin Electronics code N12JB

Cerulian 10 port USB 2.0 top loading hub
Maplin Electronics code N14JB

There's a broader range of USB hubs and switches but not all are in store locally, and I'd like to purchase either this afternoon or tomorrow.

Cross reference:

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Cerulian N14JB, 0x0608 (ten-port USB 2.0 top loading hub)

Post by grahamperrin » Thu Mar 28, 2013 12:13 pm

I decided to go for the ten-port option. System Information identifies the Cerulian N14JB as product 0x0608 from vendor 0x05e3 (Genesys Logic, Inc.)

Genesis Logic | USB Hub Product | Hub Controller
… but I don't know whether what's in the N14JB is amongst that range of controllers.

The following arrangement –

2013-03-29 03-29-58 screenshot.png
2013-03-29 03-29-58 screenshot.png (248.17 KiB) Viewed 100 times


– with my two Seagate hard disk drives (Backup+ Desk, GoFlex Desk (pool named tall)) in the ports adjacent to the power supply – seemed good enough for starters.

The apparent nesting of two other hubs interests me. Other people might have seen such things often before, but I rarely work with external hubs so this is a novelty. None of the Genesis USB 2.0 controllers linked above have more than four downstream ports so I guess that in the case, there are three controllers.

Background

This Cerulian N14JB is primarily to replace ye olde Sitecom USB 2.0 Dock CN-022 that features in a troubleshooting topic, Finder eject, reconnect, panic, type 14=page fault, zpool.

Postscript: Mac sleep during and receive involving all hard disk drives on the hub

Sleeps and wakes following a boot yesterday:

Code: Select all
2013-03-28 19:20:36.000 bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1364498436 0
2013-03-28 19:20:39.000 kernel[0]: Darwin Kernel Version 12.3.0: Sun Jan  6 22:37:10 PST 2013; root:xnu-2050.22.13~1/RELEASE_X86_64
2013-03-28 19:20:43.000 kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: 5
2013-03-28 23:42:05.000 kernel[0]: Wake reason: OHC1
2013-03-28 23:42:05.000 kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5
2013-03-29 04:02:43.000 kernel[0]: Wake reason: OHC2
2013-03-29 04:02:43.000 kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5
2013-03-29 07:28:19.000 kernel[0]: Wake reason: OHC2
2013-03-29 07:28:19.000 kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5


The first of those sleeps of the Mac occurred naturally (whilst I slept) during a relatively large stream –

Code: Select all
sending from @ to zhandy/pockettimemachine@2013-03-28-202704
receiving full stream of zhandy/pockettimemachine@2013-03-28-202704 into tall/backups/zhandy/pockettimemachine@2013-03-28-202704
received 63.8GiB stream in 14516 seconds (4.50MiB/sec)


– a send from a single-disk pool, reception at a two-disk pool, all three on the new hub.

I'm impressed, pleased that the sleep and wake did not upset the reception.
Last edited by grahamperrin on Fri Mar 29, 2013 6:38 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Cerulian N14JB hub with a Kingston DataTraveler 400

Post by grahamperrin » Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:31 am

Yesterday

Around 19:39, whilst the Kingston device (experimentally a cache vdev) was in the hub, an inexplicable disconnect/detachment. http://www.wuala.com/grahamperrin/publi ... allery&id= … if I post details, it'll be under a separate topic. Note to self: failmode …

Today

With the Kingston device in the hub at boot time:

2013-03-29 08-20-35 Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 08.20.33.png
2013-03-29 08-20-35 Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 08.20.33.png (113.57 KiB) Viewed 97 times


After moving the device to the frontmost port of the MacBookPro5,2:

2013-03-29 08-21-54 Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 08.21.51.png
2013-03-29 08-21-54 Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 08.21.51.png (164.23 KiB) Viewed 97 times


After taking the device offline and moving it back to the same port of the hub:

2013-03-29 08-23-43 Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 08.23.41.png
2013-03-29 08-23-43 Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 08.23.41.png (157.89 KiB) Viewed 97 times


With the Kingston device in the hub at safe boot time: comparable behaviours.

I might work around by logging in to the OS before connecting the device to the hub, but considering yesterday's experience: I might find the connection not reliable.

Generally, not specific to ZEVO or ZFS

I could experiment with different ports of the this external hub, but I recall seeing comparable oddities with the Kingston device with a previous (much older) hub, so let's assume that I'm overstepping the boundaries of what's worthwhile with USB 2.0.

The hub

… seems good enough, if I ignore the oddity with the Kingston device.
Last edited by grahamperrin on Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:11 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Choice of ports in the Cerulian N14JB

Post by grahamperrin » Fri Mar 29, 2013 6:29 am

grahamperrin wrote:… two Seagate hard disk drives (Backup+ Desk, GoFlex Desk (pool named tall)) in the ports adjacent to the power supply – seemed good enough for starters. …


Just for the record, now I'm experimenting with those two in a different position – on the same side of the hub, but farthest from the power supply.

Adjacent to the power supply: StoreJet Transcend.

A System Information view:

2013-03-29 11-27-20 screenshot.png
2013-03-29 11-27-20 screenshot.png (241.96 KiB) Viewed 94 times
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