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I bought a powered 7-port USB Hub, which has 7 downstream ports, 1 up stream port and one power port.

My question is can I connect both Raspberry Pi and the USB devices that I want to use with Raspberry Pi and power them through the sample USB Hub that I have. Is it possible?

Edit

Just to clarify, I want to power RPi through micro usb from one of the USB slots from the hub, not through the USB port of RPi.

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  • See this question. You can't power the Raspberry Pi via the USB ports.
    – Jivings
    Jan 12, 2013 at 13:12
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    @Jivings I'm not sure the OP wants to power the RPi via the USB ports. I think he wants to power his RPi via the micro USB power input, and use the USB hub to connect more than two devices to the RPi.
    – Morgan Courbet
    Jan 12, 2013 at 13:30
  • I have edited the question to clarify. I want to power through the microusb port of RPi.
    – Sudar
    Jan 12, 2013 at 15:37
  • Which USB hub are you using? Maybe we can add information on your hub to the verified peripherals page?
    – Steven Devijver
    Jan 13, 2013 at 11:05

2 Answers 2

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It's possible to power your RPi through your USB hub on two conditions:

  • the hub does not backfeed: this is easy to test; remove the SD card, connect the RPi's USB port (not micro USB port) to the hub. If the RPi's led doesn't come on the hub doesn't backfeed. If the hub does backfeed you can't use this hub with the RPi.

  • the power supply of the hub is powerful enough: some USB hubs come with a 1 A power supply. Mine has a 2.4 A power supply which is plenty for the RPi, a passive HD and a wifi dongle.

See the list of verified USB hubs: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#Working_USB_Hubs

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  • This is useful info - I've been doing this with my Pi for a while, but didn't know about the issue of backfeed. THe advantage of course os that you need a single plug for several peripherals and the Pi together.
    – Mick Sear
    Feb 25, 2013 at 9:00
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    @steven It seems for rev 2.0 boards, backfeeding isn't a problem any more raspberrypi.org/archives/1929
    – Sudar
    Sep 13, 2013 at 16:30
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It is possible. I am currently powering two raspberry pis and an external 1tb portable hard drive from a single usb hub (link).

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  • Thanks for confirming it. BTW is it also possible for you to access the hard drive from RPi, since it is all connected through the same hub?
    – Sudar
    Jan 12, 2013 at 15:39
  • Yes, I just feed the hubs main USB connection back int the RPI and the USB drive is automounted via Raspbian. My experience is that if you want automounting you need to have the GUI also running on the RPI.
    – Bala Clark
    Jan 12, 2013 at 15:41
  • Thanks for confirming it. I will try to do it myself as well.
    – Sudar
    Jan 12, 2013 at 15:43

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