Inateck HB5001 4-Port USB 3.0 + 1-Port Fast-Charging Desktop HUB with 5V/4A Power Supply Interface USB 3.0 x 4 + Charging x 1 Cable length1200mm / 47.24in Weight51g / 1.8oz Size125 x 64 x 15mm / 4.26 x 2.52 x 0.59in Having had innumerable USB hubs, however none that came with a charging port built in, I was eager to test this product out. Included in the box was a 5 PORT USB hub, x4 USB-3 and x1 charging (SV/2A), the latter for rapid charging of tablets, a 5V/4A Power Adapter, and a robust and well shielded USB cable, the cable was quite thick and certainly did not look flimsy, as i have received from other hubs. The hub itself was well crafted and looked elegant, sleek, and stylish, being lightweight was perfect for my rMBP, allowing usage on the go. An illuminated power button on the roof of the device is used to turn on the charging port and charge devices that require a higher output (i.e.
Apple’s Retina iPad; thanks to it’s intelligent charging chip). The 4 B 3.0 ports on the front of the hub are well constructed, and items fit snugly inside, the hub overall exudes a sense of robust, but stylish construction. Once an an item is connected a, a green lights up to confirm a peripheral has been added. The hub is impressively compact and light weight, and the physical foot print means it takes very little space on my rather cramped works-station. Real world testing: machine: rMBP late 2013; Imac 2012 - both OSx Yosemite.
Software: Blackmagic Disk Tool Test test: 1-5 GB block transfer USB 3 Devices (MB/s; R= read, W=write) Hub vs native US 3.0 32GB Sandisk extreme R=254, W=110 R=252, W=112 32GB SSK USB3 R=44, W=30 R=58, W=31 64 OWC SSD R=150, W=84 R=148, W=92 via USB3dock The above is a summary from a plethora of devices. I noticed that high quality usb3 drives (ie Sandisk) and SSDs (via my superb inateck usb 3 dock) demonstrated flawless data transfer, that matched the native USB3 on the Mac. Even using x3 pen drives, my dock and charging my ipad, i did not notice a significant drop in transfer. The only device where there was a small drop in read speeds was the SSK usb3 32GB, this is something i can live with as i rarely use this particular pen drive as it is no where near as relaible as my sandisk drives. As expected the hub is backwards compatible with all USB 2.0 devices and this works flawlessly with MacOSx (Yosemite) and on Windows 8.1 (tested with both native and VM).
Overall, the Inateck’s HB5001 hub is an affordable, elegant, compact, robust, and well designed piece of kit. The product was kindly given for review by Inateck.
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This hub, like nearly all hubs, seems to be underpowered. USB 3.0 spec is for up to.9A per port, or 3.6A in this case. Add the charging port on the side and you could potentially need 5.6A but only have a 4A power supply. They are either counting on it being unlikely that someone would plug in 4 bus-powered drives and charge a tablet at the same time, or some port is going to get the shaft.
I'm not trying to pick on the Inateck, in fact I read this thread because I have an Inateck product and rather like it. As I said, almost all USB 3.0 hubs are underpowered these days. It is manageable, but disappointing to me nonetheless.