6. Are You Being Served?

To find out how well the USB Servers actually worked, I attached 4 USB products to each device and conducted the testing shown in Table 1 below, using a computer configured with an AMD Mobile 2600 with 500 MB DDR 2100 RAM running Windows XP.

Two types of devices are notable in their absence from this table. I didn't include a webcam, since neither device can yet support Isochronous (audio / video) USB devices, i.e. products that require guaranteed bandwidth to be available, and didn't test a USB hard drive because I didn't have one (and couldn't get one in time for deadline). The test results are in Table 2 below.

Device	Silex SX-1000U	KeySpan USB Server
Multi-Function Printer		The printer and the scanner both worked but the built in card reader did not.
MP3 Player		Completely locked up computer. Had to do a cold reboot.
Digital Camera
USB Flash Drive
Key: = Worked great = Worked but some problems = Didn't work	Silex Software Version: 1.0 Firmware Version: 1.0 Keyspan Software Version: 1.1.1 Firmware Version: 1.1f1 04-07-07
Table 2: Test results

15 February 2005 update
Due to conflicting information in various Keyspan documents, I originally thought that Keyspan suppored fewer device types than Silex. But Keyspan pointed out my error and has since corrected the compatibility statement (scroll down to Compatibility section) on the USB Server's web page to reflect their support for essentially the same range of USB device types supported by the SX-1000U.

The bottom line is that the list of USB device types supported by both products is essentially the same. But this doesn't mean that every device in the supported type list is going to work without a hitch.

Notes:
- This on-line Keyspan manual page isn't current, but gives you an idea for some of the devices that Keyspan has tested.
- Silex' supported device list (PDF), includes digital cameras, flash memory, card readers, audio players, hard drives, floppy drives and more.