Hardware ReviewsBelkin USB Direct Connect kit (FBU004) We had such high hopes. The new USB Direct Connect kit from Belkin promised right on the front of the box: "Simplicity. Quick, easy Plug-and-Play installation." We were psyched. Maybe this was the future of home networking. Plug a USB cable into both computers, fire them up and voila! An instant network. Almost. In fact, it wasn't nearly that simple and actually took MORE software installation steps than a typical Ethernet kit. Nevertheless, once we did get everything to work, the Belkin kit was pretty neat. In everyday sharing of files, internet access and printing, this simple kit provides fast enough network speed to suffice. The price isn't bad either. Thanks to an e-mail tip, we found it at www.buysoftware.com for $50.04 + shipping. That's an unbelievable price considering other (usually low cost internet) stores have it for nearly $100. Overview The Belkin kit comes with two six-foot cables called A/B Cables with one plug that fits in the back of your computer equipped with USB ports and a slightly different plug that fits in the tape-cassette-size USB Direct Connect "hub." A driver disk is included and a very short installation and troubleshooting manual. Very short. Also, we must admit that we were a little concerned with the designation on the manual "V0.9"...apparently pre-version 1 information. Hmm?
The manual's specifications page lists data rate at 12 Megabytes per second (not megabits, mind you). Obviously, our tests found that to be a bit optimistic, but then again so is the 100Mbps we're "promised" with fast Ethernet. Although this kit allows only a two host configuration, the manual does point out a number of other configurations with additional computers, including a daisy chain setup (computer, direct connect box, computer, direct connect box, computer, etc..) and tree configuration with one computer connected to several direct connect boxes which are then each connected to another computer. With the tree setup, the maximum number of USB boxes that can be connected to a single host is eight. Also, due to USB limitations a host can be no further than 5 meters from the direct connect box. Installation This was the tricky part and a far cry from "plug-n-play." First, of course, you need to make sure that you have a computer properly configured for USB. That means both the hardware and Windows98 are required. You might be able to get USB support with the Windows95b version and the necessary USB patch, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you ask us, you don't need any additional challenges beyond those you'll face with hardware and Windows98. (We did get a tip on a file that can help you determine your USB setup. We haven't check it out ourselves but you can find it on the home page for EZ Link, a competitive product www.ezlinkusb.com.) With your USB ports working correctly, you can plug the USB cable into the Direct Connect "hub" and then into the back of your computer while the computer is running (it feels almost weird to do this, but...hey...this is the late 90s right?). The only power needed comes from the USB ports on the computer. If this works properly, it is pretty neat. If you're watching in the Device Manager, you'll see the USB device get added automatically. Even if you're not watching Device Manager, inserting the USB cable into the port will make a "Add New Hardware Wizard" box pop up on your screen. Strangely, the first time we did this the box indicated a "Kwiklink USB Host-Host Connector." This appears to be the actual manufacturer of the kit that OEMs it for Belkin. But it is a bit confusing. Next, you'll select the option to search for the best driver and point to the A drive. According to the manual, you should receive a message that the file couldn't be found. In reality, we saw a confirmation that the Belkin USB Direct Connect device would be installed. However, after we clicked OK and it started to install the needed software, we THEN received the notice that a file couldn't be found. Then as the instruction suggest, we pointed the install program to the A:\Win98 folder and installation continued. The Quick Installation section of the manual suggests at this point that you should have several components in your network control panel. We had none. So as the manual spells out later we manually added an adapter in the control panel and selected "Have Disk." During the installation we TWICE had to point the install program back to the A:\Win98 folder to find all of the necessary files, but we ultimately were able to select finish, restart the computer and get the necessary adapter in the network control panel. We then had to manually add the TCP/IP and IPX protocols, as well as the Client for Microsoft Networks and File Sharing. Did you follow all that? If you didn't, that's understandable. It wasn't easy to work through. But here it is in summary:
Once you accomplish all of this, you should have a working network. Unfortunately, we ran into a major installation problem that we never could resolve. In short, we had a VX-chipset motherboard and a Cyrix 166+ installed in one of our test machines. This motherboard is about two years old and has a jumper on the board for connecting a USB port device. The device fits on the back of the computer in an open slot and includes two USB ports. The BIOS includes the option to enable the USB ports. We installed the device, enabled the port, plugged in the Belkin USB cable and was never able to get the computer to properly identify or work with the kit. The install program always indicated this was an "unknown device" and refused to work. Since it did "sense" the USB hardware, we believe our ports were working correctly, but apparently not well enough to identify the Belkin kit. HINT: If you don't have a computer with already installed, ready to go USB ports, I would be very wary of this setup. Keep in mind, however, that we have not yet tested one of the USB port cards that adds both the hardware and software to get a USB port on a computer that doesn't already have one. Those may work great. For now, however, we'll recommend that you consider this kit ONLY if you have USB ports on your computer. Performance So, once you get the kit properly configured and working, how does it perform? In "look and feel" tests, the kit seems to respond quite well. The computers connect and files can be opened without any noticeable delays. To put some numbers behind the speed, we used our standard 30 meg test file and performed our normal set of two reads and two writes. Because we couldn't use one of test machines (see above), we used our workhorse machine (a Celeron based system overclocked to 450mhz) together with our advanced test machine. To compare the speeds, we also copied the same file at 10Mbps and 100Mbps (using a switchable D-Link hub). As you can see from the chart below, the USB Direct Connect does fairly well, averaging only twice the time (half the speed) of 10Mbps Ethernet and about 1/4 to 1/8 the speed of fast Ethernet (100Mbps).
To help provide a better "real-world" sense of what this type of performance means, we also used a 13 meg AVI file on the advanced test machine and opened the file with the windows media player on our Celeron machine. With the USB Direct Connect kit, the AVI file was very choppy. At 10Mbps and 100Mbps, the AVI file played very smoothly. Summary If you have two machines that are relatively new and have working USB ports, this Belkin kit could be a good choice. It will be particularly appealing to those who have absolutely NO desire to open their computer cases. And, if you use networking only for sharing an occasional file, printing and internet sharing, the speed probably won't be an issue. Nevertheless, we have to point out (as you've read) that installation of the software is far from plug-n-play. Plus, you still have the limitation of short cables so you won't be using this between rooms or even far across a large room. And, finally, if you need to share large files or otherwise need a fast network, you can still have a fast Ethernet kit for another $50. Bottom line: this isn't a bad networking kit. BUT...we feel strongly that USB in general and this kit in particular promise "simplicity" that just doesn't seem to hold water in our real-world tests. Primarily because of that, we rate the kit only slightly above average in our rankings. Grade = C+ Details
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