OK Quality USB cables? cables direct ones ok?

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richms

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#109249 16-Sep-2012 15:58

Think I have finally nailed down my USB issues to cable problems since things are ok when they are on a really short cable at the PC, but on the long one thru the wall I get the drives dropping out 1-2 times a week causing all sorts of issues.

So, im going to replace my ebay cables with something a little better - cables direct have some 5m USB 2.0 cables for about $5 - but they look thin from the pictures so I am worried they might be cheap thin unshielded junk like I already have. Has anyone bought some and seen how they are constructed?

Code is C-U2AMB-5 and they are on this page here: http://www.cablesdirect.co.nz/catalog/entry?page_number=3&entry=180

Richard rich.ms

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#686713 16-Sep-2012 16:23

Anecdotal evidence seems to state that 5 meters is the maximum distance you'd want to be running.
I'd spec the cable up quite a bit if I was in your position... especially if you're running it through the wall.

richms

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#686716 16-Sep-2012 16:45

Yeah, but its hard to find the construction of a cable before you buy it, and I dont think I would have much luck returning one once I had hacked it open only to find 4 tiny wires with no shielding, as is the case of the ebay ones I got.

If someone has bought from cablesdirect/other dynamix reseller before and cut one open then I would be a bit more confident in buying half a dozen of those cables for my external drives.

Richard rich.ms

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#686718 16-Sep-2012 16:54

I brought a 10m active extension USB cable from Cables Direct quite a while ago. Ran it under the house and had 2 x 2m linked into it so was actually running USB over 14m. Never had a single problem. The active extension was quite thin which did worry me a little when I was installing it but it never skipped a beat and the printer (Canon iP4500) was used to print quite a lot of photo's.

I've brought a lot of cabling from Cables Direct and always found the quality good, plus the people there are really helpful if you've got any queries.

EDIT: I've just recently moved so removed all the cabling I'd installed at the other place. I'm looking at the active USB cable now. 5mm thick including the clear plastic sheath. The braided shielding is quite tightly woven. I'll try and take a photo of it later this evening and will post it if it comes out any good.

richms

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#686748 16-Sep-2012 18:01

Ok well having shielding is a good start. The ebay ones I cut open are just a green and white twisted together (really thin) and the red and black twisted together (thicker but still not much) directly inside the outer black jacket.

Powering things up like lights or plugging in the laptop power brick is a sure fire way to get the connection to glitch out. Its one drive per cable into back panel USB ports on the computer, no hubs or anything, and all quality external drives not cheap-ass enclosures. Wish they used a full sized B plug on them, those are easy to get in decent quality and long.

Richard rich.ms

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#686819 16-Sep-2012 20:18

Here ya go...

Active USB cable

michaelmurfy

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#686828 16-Sep-2012 20:33

If this is connected to a Sever (yes, Asus called it that on a motherboard I got from them) why not get a Raspberry Pi and extend it that way? Will be much more reliable in the long-term (depending on the bandwidth you actually need) - long USB cables are just asking for trouble for things like this.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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richms

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#686887 16-Sep-2012 23:49

I still have no idea how to get a non windows machine behaving nicely on the lan with permissions etc and whenever I have been torrenting on a network drive I have only managed to go days before getting that damn noone knows how to solve it error about not enough storage on the server. It was OK other than USB bandwidth limits when I had a hub at the other end of the cable vs a seperate one for each drive.

Richard rich.ms