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How many FireWire 800 devices can I connect to a 3-Port Hub?
Monday, April 30, 2007 / Hardware, Networking
I am interested in purchasing a Belkin FireWire 800 3-Port Hub. Even though it’s suppose to be a 3-port hub, per Amazon reviews by 2 customers, it’s really a 2-port hub. They say that one is connected to a computer and that leaves 2 ports. Question? Does that mean that you can’t connect anything else on the first port since it will be plugged into a computer and only use 2nd & 3rd ports?
This is one of those semantic marketing tricks that many manufacturers use. In this case, one of the three ports must be used to connect the computer to the hub. The effect on this three-port hub is that it really is a FireWire 800 splitter. Instead of one FireWire 800 device you can have two off one port. In the strictest interpretation of "hub," it is a union of like items by a center device. With this hub there are three ports joined together in a box but for your use, just think of it as a splitter.
