Please help find a Dual Inputs USB power cable

[Pack'nHeat]

Hello

After 8 hours of searching, I turn to you.

Several 2.5" external hard drives come with an Dual Inputs USB power cable. That way, if your laptop's USB bus power is not enough to run the hard drive, you can use two USB ports.

Well, a long time ago, I saw one that had a pass through on one of the two inputs.
This will still give you the "two port power", but allow a pass through port for a low power mouse.

I can find several Dual Inputs USB power cables, but none with a pass through. I would be happy I guess with a small pass through but really really want an all-in-one cable. Here is a regular one. http://www.addonics.com/products/pow...ower_cable.asp

Thanks for any help.

[BipolarBill]

With all of my years supporting USB, I have never seen any USB 2.5" enclosure that works reliably using USB power. Add another USB device on the other end of a passthrough and you are asking for one or all devices to fail. You are much better off with a self-powered drive or a powered USB hub to hang these devices off of. There are very good and small USB 2.0 hubs available. Sam's Club has the Stratitec for peanuts. These are the drives I recommend - and no others.

http://www.usbwholesale.com/2.5%20us...e%20bf2043.htm

http://www.usbwholesale.com/otolink%...e%20sue10s.htm

I swear by the second one. It also benches twice as fast as any other.

[Pack'nHeat]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
With all of my years supporting USB, I have never seen any USB 2.5" enclosure that works reliably using USB power. Add another USB device on the other end of a pass through and you are asking for one or all devices to fail. You are much better off with a self-powered drive or a powered USB hub to hang these devices off of. There are very good and small USB 2.0 hubs available. Sam's Club has the Stratitec for peanuts. These are the drives I recommend - and no others.

http://www.usbwholesale.com/2.5%20us...e%20bf2043.htm

http://www.usbwholesale.com/otolink%...e%20sue10s.htm

I swear by the second one. It also benches twice as fast as any other.

Do you have these enclosures? They look like plastic.
I wish they would post the dimensions.

Funny that Newegg and every other web store sell 2.5" enclosures and 99% of them are not AC powered. If I have to use an AC powered enclosure, I would have purchased an 5,400 or 7,200rpm drive. Not this darn 4,200rpm drive. I wanted to avoid another power plug. Now that I need another plug to drag around, I could have just gone with a 3.5" drive.

[BipolarBill]

Don't be silly. A 3.5" drive would need power and be heavier/bulkier. You're just being bitter. You have no one to blame but yourself for not listening.

Yes those enclosures are plastic - high impact. I own the second one (as I've already stated) and it works great. My 4200RPM Toshiba benches faster than a 5400RPM notebook drive in any other enclosure (as I've alredy mentioned). The power supply is tiny.

Are you listening this time?

[Pack'nHeat]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
Don't be silly. A 3.5" drive would need power and be heavier/bulkier. You're just being bitter. You have no one to blame but yourself for not listening.

Yes those enclosures are plastic - high impact. I own the second one (as I've already stated) and it works great. My 4200RPM Toshiba benches faster than a 5400RPM notebook drive in any other enclosure (as I've alredy mentioned). The power supply is tiny.

Are you listening this time?

No, I am bitter because they all claim to run without AC.

I had already ordered my enclosure before you even "warned" me. That is why I was asking for a USB pass through. The enclosure I had purchased would use both of my USB ports.
So, I do "listen" to your advise. You were just an hour too late on your advise, but I do appreciate your input.

[BipolarBill]

Honestly, I don't know how these makers get away with peddling devices that work intermittently at best. These bus-powered hard drives do just that. Look at it this way - the USB bus has 500mA to work with. Now, the bus will limit any one device to 100mA "steady-state" - or on a continuous basis. A spinning hard drive is going to need 400-500mA just to spin up the drive. I seriously doubt that a spinning drive and the circuitry in the enclosure can operate continuously at 100mA. If the drive tries to draw more than it is allotted, Windows shuts it down. Results? One drive will be a strain. Two drives will be impossible!

I have tested (for online review purposes) these bus powered drives and they always drop off at inopportune moments. That's not fun. I have never had that issue with my O'ToStore enclosure.