The USB ports on a Raspberry Pi 1 have a design loading of 100mA each - sufficient to drive "low-power" devices such as mice and keyboards. Devices such as WiFi adapters, USB hard drives, USB pen drives all consume much more current and should be powered from an external hub with its own power supply. While it is possible to plug a 500mA device into a Raspberry Pi 1 and have it work with a sufficiently powerful supply, reliable operation is not guaranteed. In addition, hotplugging high-power devices into the Raspberry Pi 1's USB ports may cause a brownout which can cause the Pi to reset.
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