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Warning: That cheap USB hub fried my client's external drive
I grabbed a $15 no-name USB hub off a random site last month to save money on a cable management job for a small office. It ended up sending a power surge that killed the owner's backup drive with three years of QuickBooks files on it. Has anyone else had a cheap accessory wreck a client's gear?
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parkerp8019d agoProlific Poster
Yeah, @lunakim, I actually used to think people were overreacting about cheap hubs, but after reading this I'm totally on your side now. One bad power spike is all it takes to mess up years of work.
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Heard that story before and it still makes me cringe. So here's what gets me - if a cheap hub can fry a drive, what about those dirt cheap surge protectors people grab at the dollar store? Do those even have real protection inside or is it just a block of plastic pretending? I've always wondered if they make things worse by giving people a false sense of security. That QuickBooks loss is brutal though, three years of financial records gone because of a $15 mistake.
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lunakim20d ago
Yeah, I read something similar on a tech forum a while back. Someone said those cheap hubs don't have proper voltage regulation, so they dump power unevenly to everything plugged in. Another guy's webcam died the same way, just a little pop and then nothing. It's wild they even sell this stuff. I stick to known brands now even if it costs more.
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