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It costs around the same as the OWC Thunderbolt Hub, reviewed above, and matches that hub on ports, with the only difference being that the OWC’s 10Gbps USB-A port can charge a device at 7.5W, while Plugable’s USB-A port is equally fast but doesn’t offer device charging. For that, OWC’s hub wins our best budget recommendation.
If you're using an external storage device – perhaps an NVMe drive you've put in one of the best SSD enclosures– you’d benefit a great deal from using a hub that supports 10 Gbps connections – alternatively known as USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 Gen 2. Unfortunately, very few USB hubs actually support these higher speeds and even fewer still support the 10 Gbps speed when it comes from a Type-A, rather than a Type-C, port. In addition to the SSD, the Anker PowerExpand has an HDMI out port and two USB 3.x Type-A ports that operate at 5 Gbps. There’s a USB-C power pass-through you can plug your laptop’s power adapter – up to a 100-watt unit – so that you can charge your computer while using this hub (the USB-C port does not work for data transfer; we tried).Gigabit Ethernet frees you from dodgy Wi-Fi and the fast SD card reader is a great way to add inexpensive portable storage. Speed: Most USB hubs operate at standard USB 3.0 (aka USB 3.2 Gen 1) speeds of 5 Gbps. However, a few can deliver 10 Gbps. There are also some cheapies that are limited to USB 2; avoid those at all costs. Ethernet: A wired Ethernet connection is almost always faster than Wi-Fi and is more reliable, too. Most hubs with Ethernet ports support gigabit speeds, meaning data can transfer at up to 1,000 megabits a second. For each model in the test group, we verified the connection speed in Network Utility on a Mac, which displays the maximum link speed. (Note that unless you have reliable Gigabit Ethernet service, you won’t be able to measure if the port is actually performing at full speed.)
Recent laptops have begun offering a USB-C technology called HBR3 with DSC, which we’ll explain more fully in the sections following our recommendations. The bottom line is that the technology offers something similar to the DisplayLink technology below, but as an industry standard. In our experience, although the technology is somewhat supported in laptops with 11th-gen Core processors, it works best in 12th- or 13th-gen laptops.If you need to keep all your connected devices powered up at the same time as your laptop, the Echo 20’s 150W power supply should suffice but is nowhere near the TS4’s mighty 230W supply. A USB-C port on your laptop can either run at 5Gbps or 10Gbps, with the latter being almost ubiquitous these days. That’s plenty of bandwidth for a printer, a mouse, a keyboard, or a hard drive, even all at once. Products like displays, ethernet, and high-speed SSDs gobble up that bandwidth, however. Take some of the claims made by some manufacturers with a pinch of salt. We tested a couple of hubs that promised high-end features but failed to deliver during testing. For example, they might promise 4K at 60Hz, but you might find that this only works on specific laptops and displays. It matches the excellent Caldigit TS4 on port speed with 10Gbps US-A and USB-C, UHS-II SD card reader and 2.5Gb Ethernet alongside the two downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports— differing mainly by its choice of the more popular HDMI video port compared to the TS4’s DisplayPort. That aside, the US-4VPD is a tempting offer, with 2.5Gb Ethernet future-proofing for fast wired network access as it becomes more mainstream.
Where I am seeing severe degradation in transfer speeds using USB 3 hubs is from SSD to SSD connected to the same hub. We conducted standardized tests to transfer a file from the SSD to the laptop; from the hard drive to the SSD; and then from an SD card to the PC, while simultaneously transferring files from the hard drive to the SSD. In some cases we used AJA’s System Tool app to run read and write tests on connected drives. In almost all cases, the performance was identical, with a spread of about 3 percent—good news for you, as that’s one less thing to worry about. This UGreen unit is another basic USB hub, with four USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 ports connecting through a single USB-A connection. Disappointingly, what looks like an aluminium casing turns out to be plastic, which feels a little creaky in comparison to some models, but it’s robust enough for daily desktop or mobile use. The big advantage this one has over similarly priced rivals is a 5V micro-USB input, meaning it can charge devices while in use (without any fast charge support) and run one or more USB SSDs or HDDs – we tried it with one of each without any issues. The only downside? You’ll need to supply your own charger and cable, but it’s hard to grumble at this price. Razer looks at power distribution differently from other manufacturers and we still can’t quite understand how each port shares its charging capacity, but it worked well in testing.
Tired of switching plugs in and out of sockets or looking for an easier way to connect? Splash out on one of the best USB hubs to buy
Lasuney’s 10-in-1 hub (two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two HDMI 1.2 ports (4K@30Hz), DisplayPort gigabit ethernet, microSD/SD, USB-C power input) offers a lot for your money, including an unusual mix of not one, but two HDMI ports, and even a DisplayPort. Thanks to ethernet support, the hub can replace many of your wired connections. Power input is rated at 100W in, with about 87W available to the laptop. The other 11 ports include super-fast 2.5Gb Ethernet, fast SD, audio and seven USB connectors, so it is specced out at the top end, although we would have preferred more USB-C ports than USB-A.
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