Most reliable hub out of all the ones online?

[carestudio]

I have tried Minix, Hootoo and Anker. All were fine except that if I connect two SSD drives to the hub, data transfer between the drives is very flaky, ranging from not-at-all to extremely slow. Spinning HDDs tended to be better. Of the three the Hootoo fared best.

Here is why
http://crazydiamondstar.blogspot.com/2016/02/intermittent-drop-out-usb-thunderbolt.html

just the power limit. you need a powered hub or dock.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Here is why
http://crazydiamondstar.blogspot.com/2016/02/intermittent-drop-out-usb-thunderbolt.html

just the power limit. you need a powered hub or dock.

I always used all three hubs connected to wall power, not in unpowered mode. Unpowered mode is a non-starter.

I have seen your link previously. As he says I think only the Caldigit and OWC hubs do the job, but they are much larger and more expensive and not intended to be portable devices.
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I always used all three hubs connected to wall power, not in unpowered mode. Unpowered mode is a non-starter.

I have seen your link previously. As he says I think only the Caldigit and OWC hubs do the job, but they are much larger and more expensive and not intended to be portable devices.

Thinking more about this, maybe I am guilty of assuming that because the HooToo, Minix and Anker were connected to the wall power (so that the Mac could be charged) this meant that the USB-C ports on the HooToo were powered as well. Certainly this would explain why they have the problems they do.

In contrast the much larger OWC and Caldigit hubs really do supply power to the USB-C ports.

Have I been confusing "power passthrough" with "powered hub"?

 

[Mike Boreham]

Here is why
http://crazydiamondstar.blogspot.com/2016/02/intermittent-drop-out-usb-thunderbolt.html

just the power limit. you need a powered hub or dock.

Lack of power is indeed the problem. These small docks like HooToo, Anker and Linix just don't supply enough power to the USB-A ports to drive two SSD drives and transfer data between them.

I just connected a conventional wall powered USB-A hub to the Apple Multiport adapter and plugged two SSD drives into it and achieved full USB 3 transfer rate between the two drives.

Oddly this rather clunky setup did not work with the conventional hub plugged in via the Hootoo or plugged directly into the MacBook (via USB-C to USB-A adapter) but I might repeat these tests.

Gratifyingly I also found that my Anker Powercore 20100 pack supplies enough power for the conventional hub so I don't need an additional wall wart. I had to make up a special lead to this.

This is not something I need to do often and I have another mac which I can do it all on easily, but nice to know when necessary I can fully use two portable SSDs (Samsung T3) on my MacBook.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Oddly this rather clunky setup did not work with the conventional hub plugged in via the Hootoo or plugged directly into the MacBook (via USB-C to USB-A adapter) but I might repeat these tests.

I have repeated and confirmed this. I tried connecting the conventional powered USB hub to the MacBook in four ways:

1. Nonda mini adapter

2. Hootoo shuttle, with and without its own USB-C input power.

3. Apple single USB-C to USB-A adapter

4. Apple Multiport adapter (HDMI version), with and without USB-C input power.

With each one I connected two Samsung T3 SSD drives to the hub and transferred a 20Gb file from one to the other.

Only the Apple Multiport worked (both with and without power). It transferred at just over 300MB/s. The transfer would not even start with the other three.

There is something golden about the Apple Multiport.

 

[DaMax85]

I have the Apple brand USB-A to USB-C adapter and a "Plugable" brand USB-C to SD/Mini SD Card Reader. Both work great.