[LAD] FOSS Ethernet Soundcard

[Patrick Shirkey]

On 12/07/2009 05:36 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:
>
> ATM out of 6 mobo USB ports and 6 hubs making branches as deep as 4 sub-hubs,
> I have only 7 open sockets.  And I don't believe my usb map is anywhere near
> a record setter.
>
>    

Slightly off topic but...

I have had the pleasure of working with multiple usb devices (in the 
1000's) and I can say that I was able to get a 4 core, intel with 8GB 
RAM to handle 500 devices at the same time with additonal pci->usb 
cards. The only ones worth any time are made by Belkin. To stream data 
to so many devices at one time you need a lot of available memory. 2GB 
will handle about 100 devices nicely without sacrificing any transfer speed.

A single USB 7 port hub can be made to chain 1x7 port hub-> 7 x 7 port 
hub-> 1 x 4 port hub to give a total of 50 devices at one time. You can 
modularise this chain to get 100 devices running off 1 usb bus. I have 
my systems installed at La Louvre for instance where they are running 
very well.

I had no chance to test latency for audio recording but from my 
experience there are only two usb-2.0 chips on the market that get 
anywhere near the 480Mb/s bandwidth available for usb-2.0 and they are 
both used by Belkin.

My experience with usb cable lengths > 3 meters is that they require a 
booster.





Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd