Cheap USB powered hub to work with the pi without backfeeding

Question

I am trying to build a 3D printer farm with the pi, and I need a large USB hub. I found this hub. But don't know how to evaluate if its any good.

Has anyone tried something like this?
Do you have a 7+ port hub to recommend?

Answer 1

Raspberry Pi boards manufactured in the third quartile of 2012 do not have issues with backfeeding anymore (due to removed fuse), see http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1929 and http://elinux.org/RPi_HardwareHistory#Board_Revision_History.

As previously mentioned you can check http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#Powered_USB_Hubs for HUBs, but you should be able to safely power raspberry pi by backfeeding it.

Citing from penguintutor post @ http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=17560

Electrically the only different between the supply from the micro USB and the backfeed supply is that the micro-USB has a 1100mA fuse, whereas the USB ports each have a 140mA fuse. There is a diode preventing the USB power from going into the power out of the USB controller, but not so for the USB supply (which is what makes back feeding possible).

So get yourself some nice USB 1.1/2.0 compatible hub and if it is backfeeding, just roll with it. The only issue I can think of, is that some hubs have dedicated "charging" ports which could actually be only ones designed for >1A load.