What Is A USB Hub

USB, short for Universal Serial Bus, is an easy, and universal way of plugging devices into your computer.  However, if you’re like me, you never have enough ports on your computer, so what do you do?

USB 1.0 was introduced in 1995, but was badly flawed, never quite being as “plug and play” as they claimed it would be.  In 1998, version 1.1 came out, correcting some of the problems, and then in 2000, version 2.0 came out, fixing all of the problems, and skyrocketing USB to the forefront of connectivity.

Once USB finally worked as promised, just about everything started connecting to your computer through those little slots, quickly filling up what space you has.  Luckily, every USB controller can handle up to 127 items plugged into it, so even if your computer has 4 to 8 ports, that is not the extent of what it can handle.  By plugging a hub into one port, you can turn that one slot into 7 or 8 more slots (the most I have ever seen is 8), greatly extending how many devices you can have plugged into your computer.

As the technology has become more and more common place, everything from thumd drives, to printers and even external hard drives, are using the USB interface.  On my main computer, I have 8 ports, but even that isn’t enough for someone like me, and I have two 4-port hubs plugged into the system.  I even travel with a mini-hub when I am out of town on businss.  You van never have enough USB ports.  Instaliation couldn’t be easier, either.  Plug it in to a 2.0 slot and… it works.

So what are you waiting for?  Get yourself some more USB gadgets, you have the space to use them now!