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Released: 2007-10-21 Rating:  More Details: Belkin Network USB Hub Belkin Network USB Hub @Amazon Belkin Network USB Hub @aStore |
Product Description
Belkin Network USB Hub with 5 x USB20 ports and 1 x 10100 port for wirelessly accessing any USB printers MP3s imaging devises and moreCan daisy chain 3 Hubs giving max 15 devices F5L009UK Networks Switches Hubs
Customer Reviews:
Easy & Hassle Free with "No" compatibility issues
Having tried and failed with various print servers for my HP All In One printer to run and be shared on my home network due to non-compatibility, I accidently stumbled across this product. I was rather annoyed by this time as my printer is a fairly recent purchase & not one of those ancient antiques so couldn't understand why manufacturers such as netgear can't seem to sort their act out.
Anyway this little belkin usb hub is a beauty and connects easily via ethernet to my wireless router so without much a do... what I think of it? Well - Very easy to setup & to use. The hub even sends messages to one of my other computers to ask for permission to shared resources i.e the printer, the network hard drive etc, and offer further usb slots so that other things such as memory sticks can be shared on the network.
Definitely recommend this and well worth every penny & more - not often a product exceeds my expectations but this certainy does and it looks good too.
Fantastic bit of kit
I have a few USB devices, especially USB printer, which I require :- a. to be located somewhere centrally (but not with our laptops) and b. to be all easily switched on/off as required. My problem is that the wireless router is NOT the same place where I want all the USB devices to be kept.
Answer. Buy this Belkin USB hub. And set them up as follows:-
1. make sure the hub works by connecting it directly to my wireless router. Tick.
2. configure my D-link 810+ USB/ethernet bridge to connect to wireless router. Tick.
3. locate all USB devices where required; connect them all to Belkin USB hub; connect Belkin USB hub to bridge; power all items from one extension lead;
Finally turn extension lead power on; all devices accessible from laptops. Tick. 10/10.
Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 
Is not compatible with OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard. No 10.6 OS X drivers on Belkin's site.
The console could see the network hub. The Options link when clicked did nothing.
Had no problem with Windows XP Home SP3
Clever, but flawed. 
Having seen this and read about its capabilities, I thought it would be an excellent "cure" for the USB unplug/replug marathon that awaits me every time I take or return my laptop to its desktop role. Keep all USB devices plugged in and connect to them over the network anywhere in the house? Never unplug or replug USB again? Print and scan and use hard drives and finger print readers anywhere? What a cool idea! I couldn't wait to get one.
And it even seemed to work! And then its limitations started to dawn, and the lovely plans I had for it collapsed.
Unfortunately the Belkin Network USB Hub does seem to suffer from a few fatal glitches which have made many of its most promising uses impossible and relegated it into the strictly "printer only" role, rather a waste for a piece of equipment so otherwise sophisticated, which is a terrible shame.
On the hardware side, it does seem to be rather prone to overcurrent; while a real USB port should pump out at least 500 mA (and sometimes up to 1 A), the Belkin hub apparently does much less, which pretty much rules out many USB-powered drives or scanners unless you invest in an additional self-powered hub. Overcurrent doesn't damage the box, but it does disable it (another glitch: the box isn't re-enabled when the offending item is unplugged, and will keep telling you to remove the offending but now-absent device over and over until you reboot it). My scanner and external DVD writer immediately disabled the box when plugged in, as did a 2.5" hard drive.
It also actively switches on and powers up any USB device plugged into it, regardless if you are connected to it from any computer: great if you want to charge a mobile phone that usually requires expensive in-house software just to charge (the Belkin will do it out of the box), but not so great in other ways. Drives will keep spinning, displays will be kept lit, and generally your hardware will not only be aged a lot faster but will be a lot more power-sucking too.
On the software side, the control software and driver is decent and stable, but again glitched in subtle but fatal ways. When your computer sleeps or hibernates, the control app will automatically and safely disconnect anything from USB as if you unplugged it physically before it does so; however, it will fail to reconnect it automatically when you wake up. You have to manually rescan. If your device is a keyboard or mouse you will use to do that, you're pretty screwed. Belkin have not fixed this despite me reporting it at least a year ago, and probably never will. The control software is good, but isn't run as a service, which means that it's not available in the login screen, or until the control app is run from Startup (in Windows). Out go fingerprint readers for login. If you lose your wireless or LAN connection, you'll also be disconnected (obviously): not the box's fault, but potentially fatal to data to any disk you're (slowly) writing to. These flaws alone rule out its use for most USB devices.
Then there is speed. Forget a mouse: the latency is just too great, even on gigabit. Keyboard is ok, unless the computer gets busy. Hard drive attached will max out at 3 MB/s in ideal conditions, and they are accessable to only one user, so just get a NAS box and forget trying to do it this way unless you really have to. Bigger hard drives will take up to several minutes to appear in Windows once plugged in (possibly due to the way Windows handles inserted drives not working so well over a network). A loss of connection (common on wireless) will possibly result in pretty nasty data corruption. Just get a NAS if you want to share a drive, and forget this method.
So it begs the question, what can you actually plug into it? Well, there's good news at least (if you ignore the power issue). Everything that will work with a normal hub will work with the network hub, and that's 99% of USB devices - I've only ever encountered one that doesn't, and it doesn't work with hubs either. It'll be just like you plugged it straight into your computer's USB, albeit slower. IF you can get around the power issue.
Where the Belkin Network USB Hub shines is printer sharing. Unlike many printer hubs on the market, the Belkin will share *any* kind of printer that is available, regardless of specialist in-house drivers that don't like SMB, and will properly handle multifunction. The software is flexible enough to connect when any computer on your network wants to print, and disconnect when it's finished, which means you can share any bog-standard printer between computers with little or no hassle (you can't do this for anything else, however!). If you want to share a DVD-burner among a lot of computers, or a scanner, it will also do the trick (providing they are self-powered or on a self-powered hub, and the user is conscientious enough to disconnect when finished).
So as I said, flawed, good my fussy Epson printers and for charging my Motorola phone during the night, but not much else. A firmware upgrade and a little tweaking of the software might have gone a long way to addressing some problems, but Belkin never bothered. A wasted opportunity from Belkin, and so I can't really recommend this box.
Does not support iPhone on a Mac 
One would imagine that a USB hub would-not/could-not discriminate, except this one does! Does not support iPhone. Belkin hub thinks iPhone is a scanner, and, iTunes (which is required to sync the phone) does not see the iPhone. On searching the internet for advice, I see others share my experience, so it is not just me.
Connection software seems very delicate. Disconnect and reconnect a device and it will probably hang.
Shame, the apparent design intention of the device is fabulous, the implementation is extremely poor!
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