Pros and Cons of the Raspberry Pi USB 3 Hub
It is common to hear Raspberry Pi owners want more USB ports. GetUSB.info just read about them introducing an official 4 port USB hub. Sweet. To note, most Raspberry Pi single-board computers, except for the Raspberry Pi Zero and A+ models, include a built-in USB hub that splits one USB connection into several USB Type-A ports. Just recently they launched the official Raspberry Pi USB 3 Hub, a high-quality USB 3.0 hub that offers four additional USB ports.
This hub includes a single upstream USB 3.0 Type-A connector with an 3 inches (8 cm) built-in cable. The “upstream” port is the socket used to communicate with the host device, which in this case is the Raspberry Pi. It also has four downstream USB 3.0 Type-A ports and can reach data transfer speeds up to 5 Gbps. There’s a USB-C socket for an optional external 3A power supply but that isn’t included with the $12 purchase. Quick note, the downstream port is are the sockets used to communicate with the devices, like a USB flash drive, hard drive, mouse, keyboard, printer, etc.
One driving force on why Raspberry Pi wanted to sponsor their own USB hub is the fact most ‘other’ hubs are just too expensive. One fundamental goal of Raspberry Pi is to provide an unparalleled offering for computer code development and the lowest possible price. Usually, you either pay a high price for a reliable, well-designed product, or you buy a cheaper option that’s unreliable, doesn’t work with various devices, or simply looks bad.
With this hub, there is no “race to the bottom,” where cheap, poor-quality products pushed out better options, and online marketplaces like Amazon became filled with low-quality hubs. To offer a better solution the Raspberry team got together with with Infineon to source a quality hub chip called the CYUSB3304.
Based on user beta testers and user comments here are the pros and cons of the Raspberry Pi USB 3 Hub:
Thunderbolt is the copper wire version of Intel’s Lightpeak technology. Thunderbolt will produce transfer rates equal to 10Gbps which is about double of what USB 3 will offer. Apple convinced Intel to create a “cut-back” version of their optical light solution with an additional caveat of being the exclusive personal computer manufacturer to offer Thunderbolt. And this is where the problem lies.
As with USB 1 verse Firewire [Apple] the speeds of Firewire where faster than USB 1, but FireWire equipment was more expensive, Apple charged what was considered a substantial royalty per part, and with Macs in general holding much less of the market, meanwhile the Windows-side controllers and drivers for Firewire ran the gamut from lousy to terrible.
Intel and Apple jointly developed Thunderbolt, which may actually be part of the problem. As of June 2011, Apple is the only company committed to using Thunderbolt. HP has officially selected USB 3 and we suspect Dell will not be far behind. After all, these guys don’t like to support a technology to a competitive company which holds