if you own a desktop computer the number of usb ports at your disposal might be
an embarrassment of riches even mid to low range machines can offer more usb
than you could possibly know what to do with but is it actually a good idea to
use them all at once here's the deal you know how the makers of usb products like
to loudly yell about how blazingly fast they are well it's fairly common
knowledge in the tech world that those advertised numbers are theoretical
maximums that you probably won't see in reality and using multiple usb ports at
once can actually cut into these speeds even further due to a separate effect
you see your computer's usb ports are
connected to controller chips inside the system and a single usb controller can
only handle so much traffic so let's say you have two usb 3 ports on the front of
your computer connected to a header on the motherboard that utilizes one
controller you can get the full five gigabits per
second if you're just plugging one flash drive into those ports but if you're
using both then those two drives actually have to share that five
gigabits of bandwidth so if you're moving data on both ports simultaneously
the theoretical maximum speed per port will be cut in half
and this isn't just true for front panel inputs oftentimes the ports on the back
of your pc which don't even use a header cable are susceptible to the same
problem it just isn't all that common for a port to have its own dedicated
controller utilized by nothing else but why don't motherboard manufacturers
just add more controllers then are they cheaping out on us
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so why not one controller per usb port
well think about how most people use their usb ports you'll have a flash
drive to transfer data every now and again but your other ports are probably
being pressed into service for your keyboard mouse headset or novelty
glitter lamp and none of those things requires very much bandwidth given then
that the vast majority of users aren't constantly blasting data down multiple
usb ports at once there just isn't much reason to build a bunch of controllers
onto a typical motherboard but most systems do have more than one usb
controller if you go into Windows device manager you'll typically see multiple
devices that are labeled usb host controller so it's not like you have
eight or 12 ports that are all sharing one pipe however do keep in mind the
limits of a single controller if you're doing something heavy like editing video
and constantly backing up footage or using a vr headset with your pc in fact
oculus officially recommends connecting no more than two of their sensors to a
single usb controller due to how much data needs to be processed for a smooth
vr experience this is not just due to possible bandwidth issues but also due
to the logic of the controllers themselves becoming overloaded
and keep in mind that a similar concept applies to the way that usb handles
electrical power if you're trying to charge or power multiple devices from
your computer each device won't get the full amount of
power if many of them are connected to the same internal hub so you could see
slower operation if you're using an older mechanical external hard drive or
a couple of those novelty fans to cool you down because you spent all your
money on a graphics card and didn't have enough left over for an air conditioner
so if you have a lot of usb devices that you need to use at once think carefully
about how much data they'll be moving and also do some digging to see how many
host controllers your computer comes with i know that yes theoretically you
can connect 127 devices to a single usb
controller but i wouldn't recommend trying that unless you have a very good
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