SilverStone EP01 Four Port Round USB 3.0 Hub Review

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The lack of USB 3.0 ports has always been somewhat of an issue for myself. Whether I had numerous external solutions plugged in or had a few ports block by other devices. USB hubs have always helped with this situation and today we have the latest solution from SilverStone in the EP01.

The EP01 is a four port USB 3.0 hub that can also turn into a powered hub through its 5v DC power connection. Featuring a six sided design, the EP01 also maintains a slim profile of just 19.5mm.

Additionally, you can stick the EP01 to any metal device through the use of a magnet in the base. Compatibility of the EP01 extends to any device with an available USB port. Warranty is listed at one year.

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Scope of delivery for the EP01 includes a USB 3.0 cable and additionally a secondary USB cable for added power.

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Above, we can see three of the four ports of the EP01. The special six sided design allows you to attach a device to every port without blocking.

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Here we have the USB 3.0 input and power for the EP01.

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Above we have our Kingston HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive connected directly to the native ports on our Z77 motherboard. As you can see, we touch 306 MB/s read and 195 MB/s write.

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Attaching the EP01 to our native ports and the Kingston pen drive to the EP01, we find no loss in throughput. Here we have 305 MB/s read and 195 MB/s write.

To be completely honest, the enclosure for the EP01 felt a bit wobbly. The top and bottom halves are not glued together, giving the strength of a single piece design, but at the same time they didn't come apart either. A few of the design strengths built into the EP01 include the unique six sided design which allows you to connect an array of devices, without ever having to worry about ports blocking each other.

Performance of the unit was as expected, and again that is to say I expected no performance loss when using the hub, so the EP01 certainly delivers in that aspect. Pricing at the time of writing is set at $27.99 with market availability quite slim at this point.

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