My backup device is a USB 2.0 250 MB Iomega Hard Drive.I'd like to put it in my garage, requiring about 20 to 25 feet of wire. The official USB specs say 5 meters max; if further use a hub/repeater. I'm wondering how realistic the 5 meter spec is. I recall that parallel printer cables were supposed to be limited to 10 feet or so; 75 foot cables worked just fine. Same thing with the specs for RS-232 cables. Does anyone have any real world experience with long USB 2.0 cables? I'm thinking of building mine using unshielded CAT5 cable, one twisted pair for power, another for data. Wise? foolish?
personally i've never used USB2, however, the limits quoted on the packaging, are typically more correct than they used to be, so, i would be inclined to believe the limit of 5M however, CAT 5 cables are much better & can carry a network connection upto 100M, but, i've no idea how a CAT5 cable would act (performance wise) if used as USB2
5 Meters = 15 feet and its very realistic. They make a USB cable called an ACTIVE USB extension cable, thats about 16 feel long. You can get one of those, then plug a 10-15 foot USB cable into it. If need be you can chain up to 3 ACTIVE extension cables together.