insufficient power when external SSD is connected to USB hub?

My laptop has too few USB 3.0 ports for my purposes and therefore I use USB hubs to connect external devices to it. In fact I have two externally powered USB hubs of seven ports each connected to the laptop.

On one of them I have four (individually powered) external drives connected to it, my keyboard, a mouse and a printer. This hub presents no problems. However, the other one which is used to power some airflow fans under the laptop (not sure if it's really useful) does not seem to have enough power when I connect a 512 GB external SSD drive to it. The drive keeps connecting to and disconnecting from the laptop.

If I were to change the USB hub that presents this problem can you suggest what I should look out for in buying a new hub?

A USB 3.0 hub spec is for up to 900 mA(4.5 watts), that is not enough for a lot of SSDs.
They can obviously have firmware that restricts the peak power draw specifically to meet USB 3.0 specs.

You can have many USB ports on that one hub, maybe you have 7 ports on the one hub, however the limit all together is still 4.5 watts shared between all those 7 USB ports. The total stays the same.

You can buy external hubs with more than 1 hub in them, you have to look at their specs, specifically the number of hubs.
Some may have a USB 3.0 charging port which ups the current to 1.5 Amps(7.5 watts) instead of 900 mA(4.5 watts).
USB 3.0 - Wikipedia

sbh7600 said:

I'll try to disconnect all USB stuff, and reconnect the USB one by one, to see where the issue comes?

Reading the other posts I understand that the problem could be with the cooling fans, if it turns out that they draw too much current.

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Infrasonic said:

Do you have any control over the external fans? Lowering their RPM will cut their power draw.

Unfortunately I cannot control those fans, but practically speaking I can switch them off when I attach the external SSD drive, until I find a better solution.

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Helmut said:

You can buy external hubs with more than 1 hub in them, you have to look at their specs, specifically the number of hubs.
Some may have a USB 3.0 charging port which ups the current to 1.5 Amps(7.5 watts) instead of 900 mA(4.5 watts).
USB 3.0 - Wikipedia

Thank you for the information.
Do I understand correctly the hubs that have integrated charging port(s) may be more useful in my case because they could provide more current to the other ports if needed?

@Berton, I am using a laptop!

Get a NAS and start using that instead of using a bunch of SSD’s on a laptop. You are not going to find a simple solution when trying to use a laptop as a replacement for a desktop.

bro67 said:

Get a NAS and start using that instead of using a bunch of SSD’s on a laptop. You are not going to find a simple solution when trying to use a laptop as a replacement for a desktop.

Definitely a better solution, but a multiple number of times more expensive than my current arrangement.

Unfortunately I'm lumbered with a laptop. It's my dream to build my own PC at some time in the future.