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I am working on a program that requires data from two USB ports, however, I was wondering what would occur when utilising a USB splitter? Instead of two direct USB connections to the computer, what would happen to the transfer rate of each of the two connected devices? Does the rate of transfer simply half (both connections therefore have a maximum transfer rate of 240Mps^-1) or can the splitter be modified to allocate 90% of the transfer rate to one side and 10% to the other?

Thanks in advance.

nderjung
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1 Answers1

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USB is a point to point connection. If you use a simple cable splitter (an Y cable) then you can only use two of the three wires. The single pair in use will have full speed.

If you want to split a USB connections to several targets you will need a USB hub. 

                                                /-\
Main computer                                   |H|A ----- Cable----- B
with an USB   -----------cable ---------- B-plug|u| 
(A) plug                                        |b|A ------ Cable-----B
                                                \-/
                                                |
                                power plug ----/

If you connect two devices to the 'B' ends of the hub then both will try to talk at full speed, but can do so only for half the time.

Hennes
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