PSA: That $60 USB-C hub I bought on Amazon fried my hard drive

I picked up a no-name USB-C hub for $60 last month because it had good reviews and I needed extra ports for my laptop. It worked fine for two weeks, then my external hard drive stopped being recognized and I lost about 200GB of photos. Has anyone else had cheap hubs damage their gear, or did I just get unlucky with a bad unit?

2 comments

2 Comments

john_johnson7529d ago

I read somewhere that a LOT of these cheap hubs don't have proper power regulation. They just send whatever voltage comes through the USB port straight to your devices. Your hard drive probably got a power surge when the hub started failing. I've heard of people losing entire drives from that exact issue. It's a real gamble buying no-name electronics like that.

tyler_white4228d ago

@john_johnson75 maybe it's just me but I've been using cheap USB hubs for years and never had a drive die on me. The ones with the little blue LED lights, the $8 ones from Amazon. I've got one powering a 4TB external right now and it's been fine for two years. Seems like you'd notice a problem way before it kills anything, like the drive just not spinning up or making weird noises. Could be that the people losing entire drives were already on borrowed time with those hard drives anyway.