Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Jermaine Chowdhury photo
1 Level
734 Review
51 Karma

Review on StarTech.com USB 3.0 Peripheral Sharing Switch - Connect up to 4 Computers - Mac/Windows/Linux Compatible - USB A/B Switch - High Speed USB Switch (HBS304A24A) by Jermaine Chowdhury

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Reliable product that works as expected

This little USB switch/hub meets my needs very well. I needed a way to easily share my wired peripherals between three computers. I've connected this device to open USB ports on a home laptop dock, a work laptop dock, and a PC using the cables that came with it. I then connected my printer, scanner, Blu-ray player, and large solid state drive using the USB cables that come with each peripheral. I went ahead and plugged in a 5 amp power supply, although for these current devices I don't think I really need one. If you need it, you'll need to bring your own, and a standard micro-USB connection is required to connect to this switch. Once connected, all three computers instantly recognized all four devices as I switched from one computer to the other. I had to manually download the drivers for my old scanner on computers it was never used with. At the end of the 6-foot cord is a small button that attaches to the device and presses to switch between devices. The lights on the top of the device indicate which computer is active. Of course, only one computer is active at a time. That works great! Haven't used it in a while, but no problems so far. The 4 cables supplied to connect to your computer are proprietary and the only ones that can be connected to the device. Two of them are 6 feet long and two are 4 feet long. On the other hand, you can use any USB cable, including older non-3.0 cables, if your devices don't need more. You'll have cables coming out of both the front and back of this guy and you'll have more cables to manage. I keep everything assembled and tucked under my desk as I don't like having any cables upstairs other than the ones that connect my laptops to their docking stations. (With the device under my desk, I can't see the indicator light to know which computer is running, but the Windows devices connect/disconnect beeps let me know that too.) All my computers are running Windows 10. I have me been on my own for a while and actually hooked up a separate USB hub to this unit so I can hook up a keyboard and mouse as well. It works well, but I've found that I actually prefer to have separate keyboard/mouse settings for each computer. I only use 3 of the 4 PC slots but I have a different cable so my wife can easily plug in her laptop if she wants to type. Maybe one day all my peripherals will be wireless, but until then this little device saves the day. No more crawling under my desk to switch ports. Great work Startek!

Pros
  • USB Hubs
Cons
  • No performance