7-port USB hubs and Windows 7 - any recommendations?

[HopeHoops]

I am YET to find one that claims to work with Win 7. I know, in theory it should just work, but when the online specs stop at Vista, it makes me wonder. My older hubs "work" with Win 7, but not at full speed.

Anyone have a 7 port USB hub that you are using with Win 7 (7200 RPM hard drives in particular) that you are happy with? It has to have its own power supply. "USB-powered" hubs pretty much suck. I'm not particular about brands as long as it isn't a fly-by-night sort of deal.

[hobbit709]

1. The problem with hubs is if it's not a powered hub

The total amount of current draw is limited to the 500 milliamps that a single USB port can handle. I've seen motherboards with fried USB because too many things wanted a total of more than the 1/2 amp.
Another problem is that some devices demand a dedicated port to work properly.
Check to see if the motherboard has additional headers for more USB ports-if it does, you can pick up an adapter that will give you more ports. Or if you have an available PCI slot, get a USB I/O card-they're pretty cheap.

The speed problem is that if you have two or more devices on the same port, it has to share the bandwidth.

[HopeHoops]

2. I've got 4 in back and 3 up front. I want to use the hub for ease of access.

The older hubs will connect the devices, but Win 7 reports that they won't perform up to snuff (as in USB 2.0 speed). To be fair, they are fairly old hubs. I do need full speed when using individual drives, but not when going between external drives.

[Warpy]

3. Exactly, I'd had bad experiences with unpowered hubs

and finally bit the bullet and bought a powered HP hub that does everything, like external sound, keyboard and monitor in addition to USB. I wish I'd done it sooner.

Skip the cheaper unpowered hubs. It's false economy.