redgreenblue Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 While I wait on upgrading from my 2018 Mac Mini I'm using an M1 MBP borrowed from work and of course running out of ports. Even with the Mini I needed a couple of hubs, my main one being a TB3 from OWC, which overall I like but am not 100% certain it is as reliable as I'd like it to be. I also have 2 Anker 10 port USB hubs connected to the Mini but might replace those with 7 port hubs to alleviate the multiple hops issue with M1 chips. I need *A LOT* of usb connectivity, a number of TB3/4 connectors and will spend to get the correct thing. What do some of you power users recommend? Does anyone have experience with the Briydge or CalDigit units? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 Hey @redgreenblue, I am moving this topic to the Music Production Techniques and Gear where it will stay visible for a longer period of time. 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rAC Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 You might find some good information on the macrumours forums I have a OWC TB3 hub that is as of yet unused. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enossified Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 I'm very happy with my CalDigit Element hub. Three downstream Tbolt4 ports (the max possible for TBolt4), four downstream USB3.2 gen2 10g ports. The CalDigit TS4 dock has even more USB ports but one less TB4 port plus card slots, HDMI, Ethernet, etc. Both can power a MacBook, so if you need lots more connections you could connect two of these even to MBPs with only two Tbolt ports Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lookatthisguy Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 On 2/3/2023 at 2:11 PM, enossified said: I'm very happy with my CalDigit Element hub. Three downstream Tbolt4 ports (the max possible for TBolt4), four downstream USB3.2 gen2 10g ports. The CalDigit TS4 dock has even more USB ports but one less TB4 port plus card slots, HDMI, Ethernet, etc. Both can power a MacBook, so if you need lots more connections you could connect two of these even to MBPs with only two Tbolt ports Once I can get myself a Mac Studio, these are the two I expect to be buying. Currently, I have the TS3 and an Anker PowerExpand Elite 13-in-1 (I bought the latter to replace the former, thinking it was faulty; I've since taken to using both with my 16" Intel MBP to distribute the load on each of its Thunderbolt buses) and a dock I won't name because I don't think it actually offers what it advertised/what I wanted from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redgreenblue Posted February 4, 2023 Author Share Posted February 4, 2023 No, name the one that you are unhappy with, that is the whole point of this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lookatthisguy Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 Touché. When I first moved for grad school in the summer/fall of 2020, I started building out the new setup by buying the Juiced Systems USB-C hub that has four USB-C ports on top and 4 USB-A ports on its back. Even with just one external drive connected for my sample library, it seemed to struggle getting up to the promised speeds. If memory serves, I read somewhere that its incapable of powering external devices—not even PD, just powering external devices for usage—which made me wonder just what the hell it was good for. (To be fair, that may have been a misunderstanding on my part; I haven’t been able to track down where I got that info since.) It’s also been a couple years, and I bought this hub because it was the first one I saw on the market with multiple USB-C ports that promised USB-C speeds (at the time, 3.2 gen 2)… maybe now the models are better than what I got? They’ve got more or less 4 stars on Amazon. I still have it in use, but it’s largely a waste of my money because I’m only using it as a USB-A hub. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManFromNapa Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 My USB hub has been flakey too so I just ordered one of these: Lionwei - 10-Port USB Data Hub Splitter with 3 USB 3.1(10Gbps), 4 USB 3.0, 3 Charging Ports https://a.co/d/eUOBBoh Ill let everyone know what I think of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.