Should I use a USB-C or USB-3 hub for Mini?

Question

Level 1

5 points

Should I use a USB-C or USB-3 hub for Mini?

Hey all,

I recently purchased a 2018 Mac Mini, and I'm definitely enjoying it. One thing I'm having trouble with however, is which type of hubs I should get in order to support all my peripherals. I've narrowed it down to two choices, and I'm hoping some of the fine folks in this forum can give me their educated advice.

I plan to charge my phone whilst connecting an AC-powered USB 3.0 HD dock, a thumb drive, Time Machine USB backup drive, wireless Logitech mouse, two USB printers, an SD card reader, and an Apple USB superdrive.

Now the Mini only has two A-type USB connectors. My first choice is to use the SmartDelux Power 7-Port Powered USB Hub. This has the advantage of not only offering me the ability to charge my phone or other gadget, but also lets me simultaneously transfer files to and from various storage devices.

The only issues I have with using a USB 3.0 hub are twofold. First, I've read that it can cause interference with 2.4GHz devices, like my wireless mouse, or wifi. Fortunately, I have a 5GHz wireless network, so that won't be an issue, but I'm worried about my mouse – or another other wireless device on that frequency – having issues. Second, even though the hub itself is powered, as is my HD dock, I'm not sure if I would still be able to get maximum throughput on all my devices whilst also charging others, since the USB 3 port on the mini is only rated at 5Gbps.

So my second choice was to go with a USB-C type dock, as that has much more potential throughput, although I'm not sure if I could still get wireless interference from such a dock. The StarTech 4 port USB-C Hub was what I had in mind. Although it is rated for 10Gbps, it is only bus-powered, so I'm not sure I would get concurrent max speed data transfer across all my devices. I have had a great deal of trouble finding AC-powered USB 3.1 gen 2 hubs. The good news is that it would be using the Mini's Thunderbolt port, so it would have bi-directional data transfer as opposed to the USB 3.0 hub above.

With all my listed devices, would it make more sense to perhaps have two hubs, rather than just a single one? Perhaps splitting the load across two USB 3 or USB-C hubs would make more sense? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Feb 2, 2019 12:03 AM

Reply

Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Feb 2, 2019 12:57 AM in response to Diogones

Either of those is fine. The first one is better since that can connect to a power supply whereas the second one is powered by the Minis USBC bus.

The disadvantage is that both only have USB 3.1 connections.

A Thunderbolt 3 hub on the other hand has other connection lik Video and other. Here are some Thunderbolt 3 hubs

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=thunderbolt+3+hubs&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=233965469970&hvpos=1t2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7127967306310863039&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008163&hvtargid=kwd-327993934505&ref=pd_sl_9slrjpqlim_e

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 2, 2019 4:03 AM in response to Diogones

One thing to note if it is not obvious, your devices that you plug

in will only operate at their designed speed, i.e. a USB3 Gen 1

device (what used to be simply called USB3) will still only

operate at that speed even though the hub is USB 3 Gen 2.

In addition, if the devices are HDD drives, especially most bus

powered portables, they will be transferring data slower than

either generation of USB 3 since the HDD itself will be the bottleneck.

Reply

Answer 3

Diogones Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 13, 2019 10:42 PM in response to Michael Black

Hey Michael, thanks for your input to my question!

Yep the BT interference is range based, you're absolutely right about that. I do have my wireless mouse receiver plugged into a USB 2.0 hub attached to one of the Mini's USB 3.0 ports, but I'd like to replace the hub soon with another solution, either a USB 3.0 hub or adapters as hcistas suggested above. I have noticed that since using the hub, I don't get the interference and the mouse works fine, so the fact that it isn't in proximity to the BT in the Mini definitely makes a difference.

I would love to use my USB hubs on my monitor, but I only have 2, and they are USB 2.0. I have an older monitor you see. If I had one such as yours with the USB 3.0 ports on it, I would totally agree that it might make a suitable hub just by itself!

Reply

Answer 4

Diogones Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 6, 2019 10:48 PM in response to woodmeister50

Thank you both for your prompt and helpful replies! Thank you for sharing your link to the USB-C/Thunderbolt hub Illaass. I have a quick question about that hub: since it supports power pass-thru, does that mean it only supports charging a laptop battery, like the MacBook for example? Or does that also mean it can supply more power to the hub itself so all those other hookups, such as HDMI, don’t have to run only on the USB-C bus/port’s power?

Thanks for bringing up that point about the external drives Woodmeister! I forgot about the fact that the slower spinning drives would be bottlenecks by their own operation, rather than a lack of power from the port they are plugged into. I guess I should worry too much about whether I use a thunderbolt or usb 3 port on the Mini then. The more important thing will just be to make sure there’s enough power for the devices to operate. I did find a hub or two that is shielded, specifically to help with any 2.4GHz I mentioned in my first post, so those could be something for me to consider using as well.

Reply

Answer 5

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Feb 6, 2019 11:54 PM in response to Diogones

Since the Thunderbolt 3 ports are easily converted to type A USB either using Apple's adapter, or with cables that provide USB-C on one end and USB-A on the other, and taking into consideration that in Apple's world, low speed wired peripherals are legacy, I would avoid USB hubs altogether. They are positively old-world, the faster you forget about them, the better.

With that in mind, you can connect your mouse, backup drive, Superdrive and two printers directly. Use the remaining port to attach a USB to to female USB-A cable and connect the SD reader and thumb drives on demand as needed. I dare say you can add the Superdrive to also use the on-demand female USB connector.

At some point you should consider replacing your printers with Wifi printers. Finally, replacing your mouse with bluetooth will give you 4 free ports as follows:

Time backup -> connect direct
Superdrive, thumb drive, SD reader -> share on-demand with cable having female USB connector
USB printers -> connect direct, and later replace with WiFi
Logitech mouse -> connect direct and later replace with bluetooth

Reply

Answer 6

Feb 7, 2019 9:38 AM in response to Diogones

USB BT interference in the 2.4Ghz spectrum is also very much a near field issue. Simply moving a hard drive or cable even just a few inches further away from a mouse or keyboard will eliminate it. Or using a shielded cable if it must be near a BT device.

I use Logitech wireless mice and keyboards but I use their unified device receiver with them instead of a BT connection and never once had any kind of interference issue because of any other device nearby. So that’s one more method to get a wireless mouse and keyboard that won’t have issues.

Also many monitors already have a USB hub built into their chassis, so make sure if yours do you are not forgetting them. While my Mac mini may only have 2 A format ports, one of those goes to monitor 1 and then that monitor is linked by a USB 3 cable to monitor 2, effectively giving me 10 additional USB3 ports (2 always powered even when the monitor sleeps) so no issues hooking up web/FaceTime/Skype camera, external Samson microphone, portable hard drives, etc.

Reply

Answer 7

Diogones Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 13, 2019 10:43 PM in response to hcsitas

Thanks for the reply hcsitas! That's another interesting point to bring up: maybe I don't need a hub after all! I really do like my wireless USB mouse and it's design, but maybe I could find a BT one that would be similar enough to switch. I suppose I could go with wifi printers, but the ones I have work so well and haven't given me any issues in all the time I've owned them that it would be hard to replace them.

The only other issue I might see with your suggestion to just use a bunch of USB-C to USB-A adapters as opposed to a hub is that I do have one of the ports reserved for my monitor. It doesn't have an HDMI connector on it, and if I use my HDMI to DVI adapter, I get a long delay on waking my Mini from sleep before the monitor powers on, and I sometimes get white static on the screen for a minute before the display loads. With my USB-C to DVI adapter however, it works just fine, whether I'm booting the Mini up or waking it from sleep.

Reply

Answer 8

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Feb 14, 2019 12:02 AM in response to Diogones

If you switch to a BT mouse/Trackpad, you’ll have that extra port for the monitor:

2 USB A Ports: Two printers
TB1: Monitor
TB2: Backup drive
TB3: Superdrive
TB4: Shared port for Thumb and SD and anything else including the SuperDrive itself (which will allow TB3 to be used for your existing Mouse).

Remember that it’s easy-peasy to connect TB3 to any USB device. Adapters are not necessary; direct cables are available for almost any USB C to USB 3 Type A regular/micro/Type A USB 3 female, all for very little $. I use them to connected to my hub-enabled monitor, USB-C to female USB A for on-demand, and a micro USB 3 backup drive. Even though my monitor provides 2 USB ports, to keep things simple, I don’t use them. The cable is to enable the monitor web cam only.

Reply

Should I use a USB-C or USB-3 hub for Mini?

Similar questions