4 port USB hubs last longer and I have no idea why

I was trying to find a technical explanation for why this is, but I'm still stumped.

USB hubs with 4 ports are really easy to find and are the most common. The second most common are 7 port versions, and I can actually explain why that is. It's a carryover from the USB 2.0 specification. I won't get into the super nerdy explanation of it, but because of that spec, manufacturers by choice limit the maximum number of downstreams to 7.

Any USB hub with more than 7 ports means there are two or more cascaded ICs (integrated circuits) getting the job done there. The most common you'll find is the 11 port USB hub.

But going back to the 4-port, for some reason they seem to last the longest. Any hub with more than 4 ports usually will give up the ghost sooner. And because USB hubs are such basic devices, there of course is no warning when this will happen. The thing either starts having problems connecting devices properly or just outright stops working.

Can you test a hub?

Not really. It's either working or it's not. Yeah, some will say you can run speed and/or power tests and so on, but that really doesn't spell out if a hub is working 100% or not.

The only real way to test a hub is against another, so it's a good thing hubs are cheap. If your USB stuff plugged into the old hub is acting weird, get a new hub, plug everything back in, and if it all works, great. Throw the old hub out. If not, then it's probably either a device or a USB cable issue.

My guess...

The only thing I can think of as to why 4-port hubs last longer is there's less overall stress on the circuit with 4 compared to 7.

Again, total guess. Nobody else seems to have an answer why 4-port USB hubs last longer other than "they just do".

Published 2023 Jun 27