USB Hub - connecting several 3.5" USB drives.

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Might be a basic one this.
I am looking at connecting 2 or 3 external drives to a laptop to run as a file server/media server but also to use the laptop occasionally as a normal laptop that I can move around. I want to be able disconnect the USB drives easily and quickly so rather than plug them in directly to the USB ports I am looking at getting a decent hub to connect the drives to and then into the laptop. In theory I assume I can just disconnect the hub the one, thereby unmounting the USB drives, rather than unmounting and disconnecting the drives individually. Does does that seem logical and do I need a high spec hub (eg does it need to be a powered one)?
 
I use a sharkoon quickport duo for that myself though OcUK doesn't seem to stock them any more.

EDIT: Ooops thought you were using bare drives - the sharkoon isn't what you want then.

A USB hub will do what you want fine - it doesn't need to be powered if the external drives have their own power connectors but will need to be powered (possibly with an additional power supply) if the drives are powered by the USB bus.
 
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thanks gents so it looks like in theory I not doing anything daft or that there's no obvious other way (I already have a NAS - an old one that I'm looking to use as backup only to the other drives). For some reason I thought it might be better to have a powered hub (with nothing to support why!) but as Rroff says, as the connected USB external drives will be powered, I guess there is absolutely no reason to actually need a powered hub.
 
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