SOLVED M1 iMac seem to make my usb C hub heat up.

[Nurgle2024]

Hi, only had my M1 iMac for a month, and I bought 2 cheap, (serves me right) USB C 3 & 4 port hubs, that draw their power from the iMac.

when I plug in usb memory stick and transfer video files to them to watch on TV instead of watching the depressing news, and boring Tv repeats.

when I unplug the memory stick they seem rather warm, along with the hub in that location. not hot but noticeably warm.

Is this normal.? does anyone else get this.?

I took the plunge and ordered a USBC external power hub, and put these toys aside now...

regards, Sandy

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

It is always recommended to use power hubs, as all kinds of issues can occur, especially with rotational external USB drives and other high current draw bus-powered devices.

If the USB flash drives are connected and you are streaming video from them, I woud bet it is normal for them to heat up a bit. I know my Kingston USB flash drives are always warm when connected directly to a port on the Mac or through a powered hub.

C

 

[TonyAguila]

Hi, only had my M1 iMac for a month, and I bought 2 cheap, (serves me right) USB C 3 & 4 port hubs, that draw their power from the iMac.

when I plug in usb memory stick and transfer video files to them to watch on TV instead of watching the depressing news, and boring Tv repeats.

when I unplug the memory stick they seem rather warm, along with the hub in that location. not hot but noticeably warm.

Is this normal.? does anyone else get this.?

I took the plunge and ordered a USBC external power hub, and put these toys aside now...

regards, Sandy

You probably don’t have to worry about it getting warm, as long as you can still hold it without getting burned. I have a really old one, USB-C to 3 USB-A, HDIM, SD and mini-SD card readers, and gigabit ethernet. I don’t really use it much anymore, just connected to the front of my Mac Studio, with two USB-Lightning cables for my keyboard, trackpad, and mouse, but they are disconnected most of the time, and the hub still gets slightly warm with zero load, definitely so compared to touching the case of the Mac Studio. But I have had this hub since I got my 2018 Mac Mini, and I don’t think it has ever had a day when it was not connected to a Mac. Still working in spite of the mild temperature.

Pay attention when you are running a heavy load on it, like an external drive. If it does not differ all that much compared to copying to your thumb drive, then you should be okay.

I just took temperature readings with my laser thermometer and I’m getting between 75° and 77°F from my desktop (wood), Thunderbolt drives case (four 8-TB hard drives), a second Thunderbolt drives case (four 2-TB SSDs), and Mac Studio. Strange that the Studio feels much colder to the touch, though. Finally, the mini USB hub reads about 95°F, also surprising because it does not feel that much warmer than the other items.

 

[Nurgle2024]

Hi Tony, yes. allmost all my external drives are separately powered except for a hand full of small 2Tb pocket drives...

I have ordered a powered USB C hub, but at present I am not using these little self powered UBC hubs. have a usbC cable to mini USB for an external power USB2 hub for my printers and scanners, though have not hooked them up yet. still getting my office in order after the flood.
I need to set up a drive array for up to 8 external disks, as I have had a previous flood in 2011 and 3 computers blow up/fuze since, So I can use a file finder to compare drives as to which files are where and centralise them all on a very large 18Tb hard drive. with 250,000+ images it would take ages by eye and photoshop... (had a fantastic file finder under High Sierra, but it has not been updated to Monterey., and have been reading the hour stories of the new file finders deleting the files "IT" selected, instead of the preferred files...

(I have had over 12 drives fail since 1999... despite only using Top brand one... not happy)

regards, Sandy

 

[Nurgle2024]

I think he's dead Jim.

 

[TonyAguila]

Hi Tony, yes. allmost all my external drives are separately powered except for a hand full of small 2Tb pocket drives...

I have ordered a powered USB C hub, but at present I am not using these little self powered UBC hubs. have a usbC cable to mini USB for an external power USB2 hub for my printers and scanners, though have not hooked them up yet. still getting my office in order after the flood.
I need to set up a drive array for up to 8 external disks, as I have had a previous flood in 2011 and 3 computers blow up/fuze since, So I can use a file finder to compare drives as to which files are where and centralise them all on a very large 18Tb hard drive. with 250,000+ images it would take ages by eye and photoshop... (had a fantastic file finder under High Sierra, but it has not been updated to Monterey., and have been reading the hour stories of the new file finders deleting the files "IT" selected, instead of the preferred files...

(I have had over 12 drives fail since 1999... despite only using Top brand one... not happy)

regards, Sandy

Flood?! Wow. I forget the database put out by this large data server company that details mainly the MTBF scores for the various drives that they use in their farm. If anyone else is familiar with what I’m referring to, please share the info. The trend is for the larger, i.e., newer, drives to be less reliable and that’s why I have stayed with the 8-TB units. But if your needs are more massive, you probably have to go with the larger drives. I have had my share of hard drive failures myself, and instead of wasting my time with security erasing, I just drill holes through them.

I’m on the cusp of ordering a “real” hub for my Mac Studio, the CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub—a bit pricey @ about $250—but to me is worth it. Powered (60w), Thunderbolt 4… future proofed, I think, of all the hubs available. I don’t need another SD card reader, so… I researched this a lot, from different sources. Short of getting a dock instead, which I don’t really need, I believe this is all I will require for the next few years. Cheers!

 

[Nurgle2024]

my first Mac Hard drive was a 10mg serial drive for my Fat Mac 512K,,, I am that old... hahah you could make dinner while waiting for a program to boot. and it cost half the price of my car.

to list of the hard drive I have left I also related to the Max size the Mac OS would allow also..

regards, Sandy

 

[TonyAguila]

my first Mac Hard drive was a 10mg serial drive for my Fat Mac 512K,,, I am that old... hahah you could make dinner while waiting for a program to boot. and it cost half the price of my car.

to list of the hard drive I have left I also related to the Max size the Mac OS would allow also..

regards, Sandy

I call and raise… My first hard drive, even before the first Macintosh came out, heck, even before the first PC, was a 5-MB “Winchester” drive for my Varityper typesetting machine. A $12,000 option. Back then, floppies were 8". The 5½" ones had not yet been invented. And they were truly “floppy.”

Cheers! Tony

 

[Nurgle2024]

you win.. hahaha. regards, Sandy I lost in the flood an 8" hard drive from dads offices Prime Terminal. weighed a tone. I also had a collection of IMB punch cards, and a ferrite core memory card, where the wire intersected though minute iron beads.. I was a major collector. (The Chairman of Christis's auction house wrote an article on the destruction of my collection in 2012..)

regards
Sandy

 

[TonyAguila]

you win.. hahaha. regards, Sandy I lost in the flood an 8" hard drive from dads offices Prime Terminal. weighed a tone. I also had a collection of IMB punch cards, and a ferrite core memory card, where the wire intersected though minute iron beads.. I was a major collector. (The Chairman of Christis's auction house wrote an article on the destruction of my collection in 2012..)

regards
Sandy

It’s great to shoot the breeze sometimes. Reflections like these do not make me feel old… rather, well tempered. My collection of “ancient” technology includes a Bernoulli drive, 8"- and 5.5" floppies, iOmega Zip drives and disks, a couple of tape drives for the IBM 360, among a lot of other artifact. I donated them all to the Computer History Museum here, in Mountain View. At the time they opened, they didn’t consider my first personal computer, an IBM PC AT (as in “Advanced Technology”) as historical enough.

The Computer History Museum venue was actually built to be the corporate headquarters of Silicon Graphics. Remember them? They were bigger than Google for a time, along with Sun Microsystems—also gone.

 

[Nurgle2024]

wow... you lucky guy.. though I lost tons in the latest flood. 2 things were to heavy to float away you may like.. a Raycophone sound on disk player, 1927. Al Jholsons move the Jazz singer was sound on disk, and I also have the Racophone sound rectifier/amplifyer that goes with it, and it is as large as a refrigerator and heavier, as the back is all iron cored transformers and valves from 1928... the only ones in the world and I also have a Kleig movie light form the 1910's. the only known one in the world...

my first computer was a Tandy TRS 80 4k level 1... with a tape drive.. and would open all night programming it... wow how technology has change. the kids these days don't know there alive...

Byte magazine was the bible...

regards, Sandy

Just one of 2,000 cameras I HAD. not to mention ancillary items.