USB Hubs For Mac Explained: Don't Be Fooled!

[@davidswift9120]

Brilliant. This video is great. My nearly 80 year old dad who recently bought a new Mac was flummoxed by the fact it only had USB C ports, and so few of them to boot. So...All his external devices with USB type A connectors would now be otherwise junk. Crikey...I find all these standards with different power through puts and transfer speeds confusing, so someone who's 80 years old? Well good luck! Many thanks for this.

[@justbeingadad2599]

Docks sometimes scare me especially when you don't know much about how they affect your battery. Thanks so much for the video.

[@zackerymcpherson9409]

That’s why you have to get thunderbolt standard

[@BeeRoyLee]

Same

[@philipdygeus3995]

I just wanted to commend you on a truly informative, helpful, no-BS video. It's rare to see that these days when "content creators" (sigh) focus more on trying to look cool and show off than actually help their viewers. More matter, less art, as the Bard said. Keep it up.

[@cmc6677]

Brilliant! You are so knowledgeable…and your delivery is so concise and easy to understand. To quote one of the other viewers here -> there is no-BS, just good quality information! Great appreciation for you and your channel. THANK YOU 😊

[@rahulchaudhary-xg9vz]

I have a Honeywell 7 in 1 Type C docking port. It works very well for me and provides me with fast output for almost everything.

[@edwardstaszko]

Very good information. Might suggest an explanation of Thunderbolt vs. USB and compatibility between them. Thanks for the recommendations.

[@ddahstan6876]

Out of this world Video! Learn so much with this that I'll soon won't be feeling ripped off or regret. Thank youuuuu. By the way, really love your genuine delivery, too!

[@_TT90]

Have you tested how the hubs/docks perform when utilizing several ports at once? Like display output, webcam on, Ethernet on, mouse, keyboard, and transferring files.

[@Munchkin-Cats]

I’m new to this stuff and I really understood your video. Super helpful.😊

[@mcgreevs24]

Thank you!!! Also your lighting is crushing it

[@speedyarchie]

That was an amazing review. So well thought out, researched and clearly explained. Thank you

[@watchdogpedro]

wow thanks Kyle, i appreciate the real data and reporting, and efficiency on the report. I bout for portables two of the Satechi

[@tomdearie5165]

Make sure not to buy a hub without a solid no-questions return policy and make sure to stress test it for your use case immediately on purchase. As a working professional, I’ve had hubs from a lot of these brands fail in the field whenever they were used in anything outside the most relaxed conditions. Many have been particularly sketchy on large file transfers.

[@totalselfhatred7498]

I have a question, how to do the stress test to them? thanks.

[@tomdearie5165]

@@totalselfhatred7498 Great question. Before I take a unit into the field (usually) I connect it and do multiple very large sustained file transfers on the device setup you’ll use them with. On one time I broke my rule, I had purchased a CalDigit hub just before heading out on expedition to photograph wolves. I had no time to test it before leaving. Each day, I’d have to transfer large amount of image data from an external SSD drive to an iPad Pro. But every time I would go away and leave the transfer running, I’d come back and found the transfer stalled. Eventually I gave up and did transfers directly from the camera, which was much slower, and meant I couldn’t t get back out into the field until it was finished.

[@tomdearie5165]

@@totalselfhatred7498 Sorry - I thought I had answered this earlier, but I guess I didn’t hit “send”. Great question. I put the device in the setup I’ll be using it (e.g., on my laptop with whatever devices I’ll attach to it for use) and then I’ll do multiple very large transfers of data. For me, that means hundreds of gigabytes. But for others, it might not be so much. As an example, I was on expedition photographing wolves and I had brought an untested CalDigit hub that I had purchased just before departure. I found unexpectedly that, when I was transferring large amounts of image data to my iPad, the transfer would inevitably fail part way through. I ended up having to transfer directly from the camera to the iPad, which was time consuming and took the camera out of action during the process. Hope that helps. Cheers

[@tomdearie5165]

@@totalselfhatred7498 Hey, Total - Ive tried to reply to your question several times, but the reply never seems to appear online.

[@toptiertech7291]

@@totalselfhatred7498plug everything in

[@boayars8327]

Enjoyed your explantion, clear, concise, as opposed to some who sound like used car dealers.

[@wuliwong]

I've had the caldigit element for a couple years now. I think it's the best option of the ones needing a power supply. All its ports are fast, 4 usb-a and 3 thunderbolt 4. I think the big difference between the element and ts4 is power delivery through the ports? Anyway, you could nearly buy two elements for the price of one ts4 and the element is the same price as that hyper hub with the gan power supply. I think the element is definitely superior to the hyper hub b/c it also has 4 usb-a ports and the hyper hub has none. I dont see much of a differnece between a small power brick and a cable tbh.

[@nhr27]

Thanks for the video! I basically just want to run two external monitors and power my macbook M4 with one cable. What would be the best hub to accomplish this?

[@nniklask]

kinda in the same situation. I already bought one for my m2 pro work laptop, but that one mirrored the video signal across the two hdmi ports. It’s so hard to search for good ones with the mess of standards. I wanna run two 2K 240hz panels with one hub that is max 100€. Now while getting my private M4 Pro mbp i take the opportunity again to find a good solution

[@AlexanderLindo]

Hi Kyle, I own the Anker 332 5-in-1 USB-C Hub and even gave it a positive review on Amazon when I purchased it. However, there is one issue that I am having with it, and that is audio playback over HDMI. When used in conjunction with my M1 MacBook Air and my Samsung monitor, audio playback over HDMI is choppy. Since you have the 332 in your possession, I'd like to know if you experienced similar issues when connecting the 332 and other USB-C hubs to your Apple Silicon-based Mac. I also own Apple's official USB-C Multiport AV Adapter, which works flawlessly as expected. I'd like to hear your thoughts.🤘🏼

[@opsihota2118]

Bought a cheap generic hub for my M1 MacBook Air, one day the computer wouldn't turn on, took it in and was told by a aftermarket Apple repair centre that the cheap hub I used likely fried my motherboard. I had the motherboard replaced, been using a quality hub ( Dell hub ) on it now and have had no problems for the last 3 years now.

[@EmilsonLacht]

I used to use one of those anker 8-in-1 hubs which had great specs, 10gbit/s usb transfer speeds, ethernet, 2x usb-a, 1x usb-c, pd and (micro) sd card reader but i had 2 or 3 of them die on me. While the price and the performance were there, the plasticy build-quality is what i think caused their premature demise. Instead i switched to an equivalent from ugreen. It's chonkier, bigger and built out of metal. But so far it's been holding up quite well, though i only got it relatively recently so no info on its long term performance. Felt like it was of higher quality though

[@robsmith4884]

I use henge/brydge docks and hubs (or did-company was aquired by someone) my lg monitor has hub functionality as well. 4 hdmi,display port, usbc and a. One cable laptop monitor and peripherals to monitor. I use a vertical dock and it’s all i touch.

[@troytinsley148]

Can you recommend a usb-c hub multiple usb-c ports? Belkin has a $35 one. OCW and Plugable have more powerful units for $100. Thanks

[@grahame8032]

Excellent information thanks. I have previously purchased so many hubs that are slow and useless.

[@paulb5432]

Thank you I liked your video but I do have a question for you. I have a MacBook Pro M3 that I have two external SSD's and I also have a 8 TB that runs on a USB but my question here is should I have a powered hub or just a hub with no power and just use that as transfer data thank you very much

[@eyadkourdi2325]

As an Anker adapter user (the 7 in 1 that is 100$), there is 1 issue am finding with all of them (I charge my Mac on a different port than the port I plug in the adapter to) I connect my mouse, keyboard, HDMI cable and an ethernet cable to the adapter and charge the macbook directly, the adapter becomes very hot after an hour or so and the keyboard and mouse starts to disconnect, it's not robust enough as you might think.

[@onecleangti]

I’ve also gotten a few doa units to which Anker is a pita about getting replacements

[@MohamadAlSabban-x2o]

😁Thanks!

[@KyleErickson]

Thank you!!

[@ABeriault]

Hello Kyle You do good work, very clear and simple! However I have yet to find a techy that is able to explain how to make a real docking station that will allow multiple computers to reach multiple SSD drives without wifi! I have three computers, 1 IMac and 2 Macbooks, but all my data is stored on three IMac connected drives: 1 Thunderbolt 2 LaCie 4T main drive + 2 Transcend SSD 5T each that are used as Backup 1 and Backup 2. I have yet to find a hub that would allow to connect my Macbooks simultaneously without using WIFI or AirDrop..(too slow and not practical for backups). Am I asking for some miracle or is there a simple solution out. there? Cheers Andre

[@vaisata]

Unfortunately it's not possible to do this through a docking station. You need some kind of network setup and then can share folders/disks over the network.

[@TheMrboombostic]

I only trust Dell docks. In the IT world, Dell is the standard (without getting overly expensive or complicated) for pc, laptop and dock. They support their products, have software updates…sometimes even when the product is no longer sold. When in doubt, go with Dell.

[@bassyey]

Yeah. All these fancy ones focus too much on appearance and are overpriced. Dells docks are already proven in the corporate world - used and abused by employees everyday. That speaks quality to me and cheap too.

[@dplj4428]

Dell,in the business environment, better now because it doesn’t do proprietary craziness. They did it for decades. I might consider if the user can use industry standard replacement. Even their cables were Dell-wiring. it was scary.

[@jcarruth19]

I still need help with this… Kyle, What about low-priced powered hubs vs passthrough power? The first two hubs you recommended need a wall charger for passthrough power. What do you recommend for these two? I was told by my local authorized Mac repair shop I needed a powered hub to run so many external HDs (I have 3 external SSDs), so I bought the Atolla 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub, which comes with a power supply. The video was very educational, but I am still confused as to what to buy. I don't think I'm going to buy a USB hub that costs as much as my Mac Mini M2, so the CalDigit is not an option for me right now. The Anker 332 looks good, but do you think it will solve my issue? Mac Mini M1/M2 users have a chronicallly unsolved problem of external HDs randomly disconnecting, giving us the error message that they weren’t ejected properly first, and not during waking from sleep mode. This happens randomly during normal use, usually when copying to or from one of my SSDs, but I've also had it happen when the Mac is on and I'm not copying anythng. No one’s been able to pinpoint the source of this error, so I could be buying different hubs, but not really knowing the source of the problem, there's no way to troubleshoot it. Have you heard about this issue, and if so, do you have any ideas on how to fix this? When you call Apple support, they tell you it’s the hub, and they don’t support equipment that they don’t make (and they don't make hubs), so I'm going 'round in circles. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[@jcarruth19]

Update: I may have stumbled onto the solution for this. After some trial and error, based on what our local authorized Mac repair place told me, it’s a power distribution issue. So I took all my SSDs off my 7-port powered hub, and am using two 4-port powered hubs instead, made by Atolla. Two drives on port, and the third on the other, which leaves some slots open. This seems to be working, as I am not getting the random dismounting and error message. So far, so good.

[@user-hi5qx2sr2u]

Dont you get interferences using a 2.4ghz wireless mouse dongle on an usb 3.0 hub ? I’m searching for a hub but I have multiple mouse and keyboard dongles

[@mexikanman]

Looking at buying the TS4, but wondering since it's been out for a good bit, if there's a newer model that might be not he horizon?

[@scantando]

The Hyperdrive thunderbolt 4 hub and dock are 40-50% off right now!!!

[@twest344]

I like my Hiearcool hub that I bought 3.5 years ago- 4k HDMI out, 2x usb a 3.0, sd card and micro sd card reader, and a usb c 100 watt pass-though (no data, just power). It is $18 on amazon, and I use it everyday. I'm sure hardware snobs will call it a cheap POS but it has worked really well for me.

[@DalWoe]

Just bought one for my new M2 MBA so happy to see this in the comments

[@fastshark1388]

yo i have a question, I'm using a 2023 macbook to power my music studio and am thinking of getting a higher end doc/hub for it. After watching I'm still not super sure on what would be best to go with. I want to have 3 monitors hooked up (doesn't really matter about having 4k-8k but would prefer). Since I'm using alot of studio gear I find myself still needing a bunch of USB A ports. Any ideas for something like that?

[@Seaglass78]

I would love to get the STL for that faceplate!

[@MrSatoou]

me too!!!

[@aaaronburns]

@KZbin this is a great video, but imagine a feature for youtube that lets you turn off the music in the video you're watching if the creator uploads 2 versions of the video. I'm listening to Nujabes on KZbin Music and it'd be sick to not have to turn it off. Great video though.

[@InternetDoggo]

This is probably possible using audio tracks, it's mainly intended for other languages but it might work for this.

[@the_guybenjamin]

Please share your stl files for the dock faceplate and the ssd enclosure! Great video!

[@JasonLorette]

I recently bought a Ugreen hub that has usb-c pass through power, hdmi, 1 usb-c, 2 usb-a, sd card slot, and micro-sd card slot. Good build quality, works fast enough, and does its job. I think it was like $60. 📸😎

[@williamtopping]

Absolutely recommend uGreen. I have a $50 Displayport KVM from them. Switching between my Mac and my Gaming PC. It has HDR passthrough, VRR passthrough, 4k @ 160 MHz, into my LG 38" ultra wide. Absolutely fantastic. I have connected to it, a Scarlet External USB sound device, Native Instruments Maschine, KK 61 Keyboard, Razer Keyboard, Razer Mouse, and a Stream Deck. It has a remote. It's THE BEST! Works flawlessly.

[@muhammadabdullah8563]

I have a ugreen usb hub idk about your experience but mine particularly is very bad Usb hub is advertised and labeled as 3.0 but in settings it shows as 2.0 My battery health degraded from 97% to 90% with 100 battery cycles only and there was like a static current on the usb hub

[@TheSlowpC]

@@williamtoppingwhat model did you get if you still got it ?

[@Funfacts-m4e]

So I have a desktop PC for gaming then I have a Macbook Pro for editing but What is the best hub for 2 monitor that support both? KVM?

[@sickycao1713]

I think the first thing is what do you need to connect to what features do you need?

[@ayush_raj1326]

Loved the review. What about Spigen ArcDock USB Hub? And does heating of usb hubs a bad sign?

[@PakistaniReacts]

how come none of them have longer cables? it's absurd

[@Biboycnct]

I am with you, why are they doing this

[@paulhorn24]

03:18 I'm afraid I have to disagree. At work, for my family and some of my friends, we recently (July and August 2024) bought many different thumb drives (USB memory sticks). And although the packaging often only had USB 3.0 printed on it, the USB memory sticks from SanDisk, for example, actually have USB 3.2 Gen 1

[@Watchandlearn91]

USB 3.2 gen 1 is the exact same thing as USB 3.0. I don’t blame you for being confused though. The USB forum should be fined for misleading consumers by renaming specs.

[@olegchorpita5681]

Guys, if I just want to connect two 4K 60Hz monitors to a MacBook Pro via Type-C using a hub, which hub would fit my needs?

[@dplj4428]

10:11 hyperdrive thunderbolt ports only but internal instead of external power brick.

[@jackharington3126]

Have you got a recommend for something in that midrange like the setachi, but still has some usb type A ports?

[@navariom-films4390]

I cant connect my thunderbolt display (with adapter to usbc) with my hub to my macbook. it only works direct to my macbook. why is that and is there a solution to have that single usbc connection to my macbook?

[@peteroates37]

@Kyle love the vid. If I just want to add a USB C Mic and a Camera (as webcam) can I use a USB C hub? I've noticed notes such as "Can not be used for media" does this mean no webcams? Thanks in advance.

[@the_diamant]

yes pleace the stl file for the ts4 face plate. so much cleaner than the original

[@alondinbar6193]

Which hub you recommend for Apple Studio 5k (thunderbolt cable) for 3 computers?

[@TravisBasson]

What do you mean for 3 computers? Do you want to use 3 different computers outputting to 1 studio display and be able to switch between the computers?

[@alondinbar6193]

@@TravisBasson yes, support thunderbolt. And maybe can use also as docking hub

[@yenrab26]

Very informative, thanks :)

[@marcusburnett936]

How does the hub get its power?

[@dplj4428]

13:03 did wonder about that ts4 caldigit 😂 i felt cheated.

[@integralhighspeedusb]

What's that battery health app you are using please?

[@KyleErickson]

I think you might be looking at Clean My Mac!

[@PolluxChung]

Hub or dock is something people shouldn't go cheap with as it's a huge link that you have to rely on full time for years.

[@josecarlosromero3259]

thanks

[@MannyBernabe]

helpful. thank you.

[@mikemurphy247]

Great vide! It seems even the Caldigit TS4 isn't enough to cover all of my peripherals. I have... 1. Monitor - HDMI/Display port 2. Ethernet 3. Web cam - USB 4. Stream Deck - USB 5. Focusrite audio interface - USB 6. Komplete keyboard controller - USB 7. Shure SM7B mic - USB 8. Ext HDD - USB 9. Ext SSD - USB That's 7 USB ports! I have a Mokin hub that covers most of them but I wind up having 3 USB devices that have to take turns with the port. Got any suggestions?

[@Photobuffeddy1314]

I agree as well - 100 % 😅

[@ekphotography]

Hey Thanks for the video, I always check your channel for things like this, I am looking to maybe get to hubs and wondering if it is a good idea or not, I want one out the back of my Studio Max M2 to connect several USB A type hard drives and maybe another out another Thunderbolt 4 from the back to connect 3-4 external SSD's, Samsung T7's and Sandisk extremes , nothing super fast just normal SSD's. Would it be recomendable to do this? Buy to smaller hubs or just one "better" one with maybe less ports? Thanks I really appreciate it. On a side note does anybody know of any cheap USBC type short cables I could buy for my Samsung T7 as I do not need Thunderbolt 4 ones just "good" USBc's ? Thanks!!

[@MrSatoou]

I`d love the faceplate!

[@deylankhan]

Can someone pls help me? My MacBook screen is actually broken fully, so i connect it to my monitor ( 24E4 ) My macbook has 2 ports and one of them is broken. I can only use 1 port so thats the reason i need a multiport adapter. With the adapter, i should be able to plug in my logitech g203, macbook charger, and also my hdmi cable. However, with the koorui 24E4 monitor i have, the hdmi cable is slightly "different" i think and it doesnt fit into any of the hdmi ports in the adapters i recently bought. Can someone pls help me? Thank you so much

[@mntwana64]

USB 3 👍

[@Ca12367]

just in time for prime day

[@GarrettBM]

Thanks, use-full video!

[@poetryinstitution4368]

Great vids love them

[@Jhursh]

I’d like the stl files

[@TheManXL]

Hmmm a Thunderbolt 5 docking station would be nice, but that means that my M2 mac mini won't support it...

[@aowowow-no1xe]

bruh why is caldigit so expensive

[@SoftwareManiacLSM]

Based on ur recommendation, I just ordered the HyperDrive TB4 hub. I have Caldigit and love it but that monster power adapter and cords simply suck. Thank you. Are you Canadian or something? It would be nice if you did one of your videos with a Southern US accent so that people like me would understand.

[@teresab208]

I bought a hub that got very hot so I took it back.

[@scottfrost317]

The only problem with the anger is that the connection cable is not replaceable

[@tom_123]

Power delivery + display port output with clamshell closed seems to be a bottleneck, in my experience.

[@pietromir]

I have a question, if I had a monitor with a resolution lower than 4k ( 1080p 144hz ) to reach at least 120hz should I buy a hub specially or the first one in the list which is 4k 30 hz is still ok ?

[@KyleErickson]

I would verify that the hub you're looking at can output what you want - dig into a spec sheet, see what version of HDMI or DisplayPort it supports, and see if that version supports what you're looking for.

[@dplj4428]

12:52 modding his caldigit face.

[@AC-lt5ro]

Remove one of the USB A ports and give us one HDMI port and it's perfect

[@justin-sane]

90210 👌

[@ed61730]

Tbh. all laptops are like this

[@KjellKarlsson1]

I did it the other way around, bought new cables and accessories with usb-c instead of buying a hub. We're moving to usb-c anyway so why spend money on a usb-hub?

[@NathanMilkie1]

Still no Thunderbolt 5. 😫😭

[@DonnaWilliams-n5r]

Taylor Kimberly Johnson Dorothy White Elizabeth

[@ronwhitehouse23]

Technology is such a terrible minefield. I thought computers and modern technology was designed to make life simpler.?

[@insertaverygenericnamehere]

I won't