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On the hunt for a USB hub? We bought the top 11 models to test in a head-to-head showdown to see which are the best for various applications. These devices come in a vast array of designs and styles for all kinds of different purposes. Over the course of several weeks, we used each hub in the lab and at home to carefully inspect them for their ports and features, how well they travel, and their looks. In the end, we identified which models are the best overall, which is the best bargain, which is best for travel, and which are the best for specialized purposes. 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. The durable aluminum shell rounds out the features list and offers a sleek look. It matches particularly well with aluminum Chromebooks, laptops, and most MacBooks. Essentially, it's a tiny, super-fast connector that many of the best laptops today have a connector for, with the only downside being that USB A or USB B connectors can't be used with a USB Type-C port (that's where a USB Type-C hub comes in handy). IoT business automation requires communication with various IT assets and peripherals located across an enterprise. Digi AnywhereUSB® Plus remote USB hubs give users the simplest and most direct connection options for existing equipment with a variety of USB 3.1 Gen 1 port options.
It’s not exactly portable, but it’s certainly a good option for anyone who needs a massive boost in available USB ports. The option to fast-charge four mobile devices at once is ultra-convenient. Moreover, it’s plug-and-play compatible with PC, Mac, and Linux systems. All MacBooks and many of the best Ultrabooks come with only USB-C ports, and just a couple of them. That’s why there are so many portable USB hubs that connect to a computer via a built-in USB-C cable and then provide a few Type-A ports, along with some extra goodies such as an HDMI out or a card reader. Anker’s PowerExpand 4-in-1 USB-C hub has one whiz-bang feature we haven’t seen anywhere else, and that’s a built-in 256GB SSD. The hub supports fast data transfers up to 5Gbps for expanding USB ports or connecting multiple devices. It also has USB on the go and simultaneous transfers across all ports. It’s plug-and-play, and no extra drivers are needed for PC, Mac, or select versions of Linux (2.6.14 or later). An integrated safety chip offers overcurrent, overcharge, overvoltage, overheat, and short-circuit protection for both the hub and any connected devices. Keep in mind that the hub’s power port is for taking power into your laptop, and not outto a phone. But your hub may still be able to charge your phone, with some caveats. A “bus-powered” USB hub connects to your laptop and pulls power from it, which it has share with several devices—and it won’t do it that well. Ethernet, 2x SFP+, 24x USB, 2x PSU, 2x fan, user, 2x WWAN (if CORE module is inserted), Wi-Fi (on Wi-Fi models)Some USB-C hubs go further by incorporating USB-PD passthrough. Here the idea isn’t so much to power the connected devices as to power the laptop the hub connects to, so that you just connect the laptop to the hub, and it charges as you use it without the charger taking up the spare USB-C port. The key thing here is how much power the hub can supply. Most will deliver 80W or more when used with a 100W charger, which should more than cover any laptop. However, with some you’re looking at 50W or less, which might mean missing out on fast-charging modes on some of those laptops that support them. 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. We looked at how SD cards were inserted—you’d be surprised how many don’t work unless they’re inserted upside down! If you opt for a powered USB hub, your data transfer speed will be significantly increased, but to really maximise the efficiency, you need to look at the transfer speed. If you only occasionally transfer files, this won't be much of an issue, but if transferring is a big part of your work, this could be worth noting. This Raspberry Pi HUB HAT adds 3 USB ports and an RJ45 Ethernet port to your Raspberry Pi, which is great when you need a stable wired Ethernet connection on a Raspberry Pi Zero! Don't forget to grab an RJ45 cable too!
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). Still, for Windows laptops, MacBook, and Chromebook users who only need a couple of reliable ports, this makes it onto our list of best USB-C hubs. There are still a couple of caveats here. First, your device needs to support a DisplayPort 1.4 video output over USB-C, which will count out many Chromebooks and some MacBooks and Windows laptops. Second, the hub itself takes 15W of power, which means that – even with a 100W USB-PD charger – you may find some laptops not charging at their highest speeds. But if you’re happy to live with these compromises, this is one of the best USB-C hubs we’ve seen.
USB hubs are designed to expand on the number of ports a computer provides. This enables users to connect more peripheral devices than a laptop on its own would allow. Devices connected to the hub can be used simultaneously and most are highly portable.
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