Customer Reviews

Belkin FireWire 6-Port Hub (F5U526-APL)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I write this review only because the negative reviews almost made me not buy the Belkin FireWire Hub. Alas, the options for such a devise are few and far between and unless you want to order something (instead of picking it up at the store) you have even fewer choices.

So, reluctantly, I picked this up and LO! on my Intel MacBook it was 100% plug and play. No software, no freezing, nothing but sweet FireWire action.

At this very moment I have a LaCie DVD Firewire drive, SeaGate 300GB Firewire drive, MOTU 8Pre Firewire Interface and a Canon DV Recorder all plugged in with one more port to spare. I was having trouble daisy chaining all of them before and so far (a few hours) everything has been running great. If I have any trouble I'll update this review.

My only critique is that the hub is so small and light weight it sort of need to be pinned down, otherwise it'll go where ever the wires take it. Just FYI.

There are literally only a couple of choices for a product like this if you're a Mac owner, so, in spite of all the negative reviews of the product I decided to take a chance and buy it anyway considering the fact that I have several other Belkin components, and use their new UPS's on 3 of my Macs, so at worst I'd have to return it. Upon opening the new box, I was amazed at the size: it's TINY! 6-ports (really 5 because one is for your Mac's FireWire cable to connect the device) in a powered FireWire hub that's only 3"x2"x3/4" plus there's a power supply connector on it also. Amazing design! I'm using it with a Dual Core G5 PowerMac that's my main production machine in my studio, so it connects these FireWire devices: 2 external hard drives, an external DVD+/-RW optical drive, my PC110 Sony HandyCam, and my Epson FireWire scanner. I've never used all 5 items at the same time, and wouldn't recommend doing anything like that anyway, but using 2 or 3 of them at the same time presents no issues...everything works nominally without a degraded FireWire bus/performance. I have the hub sitting on top of the G5, and the power source for the hub is connected to my Belkin 1500VA UPS, just in case there's a power outage and I'm in the middle of something important using the FireWire devices. After using the hub for about 6 months, I can't find anything negative to comment about it. And like most Belkin products, it has the Lifetime Warranty, so I have no worries should it fail at some point: they'll replace it if that happens. So here's a 5-Stars***** [...]: I highly recommend the FireWire 6-Port Hub to Mac owners, and have found, over a long period of use with multiple devices, that it works better than I expected. And if you appreciate great design, it's a tiny device that won't clutter up your workspace. Like all the Belkin products that I own, this one works fantastic, and you're assured of product satisfaction with their LifeTime Warranty on the hub and power supply. Way to go Belkin, and thanks for making such a great product!

I bought both the 7-port USB hub and the 6-port Firewire hub to work with my iBook. Needed more ports. No problem with the USB hub. I attached the Firewire hub, then attached my new Iomega external hard drive, and had a near-disaster which took me a full day to recover from. Turns out my new hard drive is not supposed to be plugged into a hub. No warning from Belkin about that possibility, and a warning from Iomega deep in the CD that came with the drive. So, MAKE SURE YOUR COMPONENTS ARE HUB-COMPATIBLE. That's the little lesson I learned.

Works as it should. It's enough for my needs and handles simultaneous activity on all ports well. Not an unbearable dropoff in performance while say, transferring huge files to an external hard drive, while burning a DVD, and fiddling with the iPod. If you're like me and you need your laptop to do a little more without adding to desk clutter uneccesarily, this should suit you fine.

I have two Western Digital Drives, one 1 TB La Cie Big Disk and a lighscribe La Cie DVD burner. This Belkin hub does not support any of these on an Intel iMAC with Mac OS X 10.5.5. If you go to the Belkin web site you will not find a picture or documentation for a F5U526-APL. You will be told your search does not match any Belkin products. What you will find is documentation for FireWire 6-Port Hub #F5U526-WHT. That is a "different" product from the F2U526-APL. In that documentation there is no information about possible compatibility issues. So I give this the worse rating on two counts: 1) The manufacturer does not provide any support in when their products are compatible nor any guidance on how to check for compatibility and 2) this product is not even considered to be one of Belkin's. Is it discontinued? Even so, there should be an entry if Belkin provided "up and out" customer service.

I have purchased two of these Firewire hubs. They have worked fine with several Western Digital 500GB MyBooks and LaCie 250GB and 500GB Porsche drives connected to an Intel Mac mini, a Mac PowerPC G4, and a Mac Dual PowerPC G5. All computers were running Mac OS X Tiger.

I could not see any performance drop-off when using the hub with one device. (Duplication of a 500-MB blank disc image file on a 250GB LaCie Porsche drive took 30 sec whether the cable was connected directly or indirectly via the Belkin hub to an Intel duo-core Mac mini.)

One warning though: do not connect or disconnect a cable to any Firewire port while burning a DVD on an external Firewire optical drive. You will abort the process with an "unstable interface" error and get a disc only suitable as a coaster!

Works just like advertised. Using it with three external hard drives, one of which derives its power through the hub.

This FW400 hub performs very well for such a small footprint item. I barely notice it on my desktop since it takes up so little real estate. No problem transferring video via FW400 from my Sony Handycam to my Mac. The power cord is plenty long enough to reach anywhere on my large desk. I recommend this hub to anyone needing one.

The device works as advertised but is better suited for hard drives than audio interfaces. The audio never cut out, but the noise level probably increased 300-500%. Even without playback and the volume quite low there is an obvious hissing sound. It sounds almost exactly like playing an audio tape. There were no other devices on the hub except a Presonus Firebox. I tried several ports and several cables to no avail.

I'm giving it 3/5 stars because I had intended to use it for Firewire audio + Firewire hard drive with my Mac mini. But I'm sure it's great with firewire drives.

I edit video on my imac computer and store all of my video files on and external hard drive. With only one firewire port on my computer I had to capture video to the internal HD and then copy them to the external one. With this firewire 6 port hub I am able to capture video from my camera straight to the external firewire drive without any dropped frames or failures. It has a nice compact size so it does not take up much desktop space at all.