Product Reviews

The Mac mini is second only to the iPod in terms of the number of add-ons that have been designed to accompany it, and Belkin's Hi-Speed USB 2 and FireWire 6-port hub is one of the most useful.

The flat, white hub is the same length and width as the mini and is designed to sit on top of or underneath the diminutive Mac. It has one upstream USB 2 port and four downstream ports, one of which is on the front. There are also three FireWire ports: two on the back and one on the front.

The hub is unpowered, so you may not be able to connect some unpowered devices that draw lots of power via USB. This unit is capable of supplying 5V and 500mA per port, though. We had no trouble connecting pocket-sized USB 2 and FireWire hard drives or USB flash drives:

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an iPod charged without any trouble.

This hub has a useful trick up its sleeve. Normally, if you connect a USB 1.1 device to a USB 2 hub, every port on the hub is slowed to USB 1.1 data rates. However, this hub can supply 12Mbits/sec to each USB 1.1 device connected to the hub while still supplying 480Mbits/sec to USB 2 devices.

Belkin's other offering, the Hi-Speed USB 2 4-port hub, isn't designed with any specific Mac in mind, but it does have a USB port on top, which is ideal for connecting an iPod shuffle. This hub is powered and comes with a power adaptor, so can be connected to any USB 1.1 or USB 2 device. Like the Mac mini hub, it can supply USB 2 devices with the full USB 2 data rate while USB 1.1 devices are connected to it.

Both hubs ship with the cables necessary to connect to the Mac. The Mac mini hub may seem like a bit of a gimmick, but there's no denying it looks good underneath a Mac mini, and the front-mounted ports are very useful. If you want a hub but don't need the additional storage offered by the likes of the Iomega MiniMax, save yourself £85 and go for this instead.

If you want a powered USB 2 hub, don't have FireWire or don't own a Mac mini, then the USB 2 four-port hub is an excellent, if slightly expensive, choice, particularly if you have an iPod shuffle or regularly use a USB flash drive.