MBP Pro Looking for 10GBPS hub with a few USB A ports and a RJ45

@ChangeAgent, I just saw you wanted 10 gigabit ethernet. That is going to be a bit more expensive, and chances are you are not going to have any USB-A ports.

Until USB4, you would not have been able to drive a 10Gigabit Ethernet adapter using USB signals, as at best you could only get USB 3.1 gen 2 at 10gigabits and that would not have taken into consideration the lost of some bandwidth for USB protocols, leaving you less than 10Gbits for Ethernet.

So you need Thunderbolt at 20 or 40Gbs. And that already ups the cost.

Maybe now that USB4 is standard, and the PC industry will start adapting the standard, it is possible some USB4 10Gbs Ethernet adapters will appear.

But until they do, I think you will need to pay for the more expensive Thunderbolt 3 adapters, which run in the $200'ish range and generally do not have any extra ports on them, unless it is part of an even more expensive Thunderbolt dock with lots of other ports.

I could be wrong and there is a vendor making exactly what you want, but I think I'm correct in the pricing. Expensive.

i would recommend having a look at OWC’s website. their specialty is mac compatible hardware. they test all their hardware with macs so you know that the accessories will work as they should. they also have excellent customer service and will be happy to help you decide which hubs will fit your needs.

** i have no affiliation with OWC and receive no compensation for recommending them. i'm just a satisfied customer.

I'm using a 4-port USB 3.1 (Gen 2) StarTech hub below (for less than one hundred dollars). I believe they have other models which also include a GigE port. BTW, Apple also sells a Thunderbolt to GigE adaptor.

Well at least you did not say BNC connectors 🤣

Well you can get a USB-C dock, although most of them that include a Gigabit ethernet port also have an HDMI port and a few USB-A ports, but you can ignore the HDMI.

Amazon search for: "usb-c dock with gigabit ethernet"

and you should find some. I do not have any recommendations, but with that I saw one that had an Ethernet and 3 USB-A ports for $20

Basically for under $100 you can get a verity of USB-C docks, some will support an external monitor (just 1).

you're welcome. and yes, i agree that OWC's products are on the pricey end of the spectrum. but when you factor in the fact that their products are tested as working with apple products as well as their customer service, it kind of makes up for the price.

Seriously, 10BaseT ???

Anyway, the USB-C hub you are describing is really “JUST” a USB Hub (hopefully USB3 at 5 gigabit/sec, and not USB2 at 480 megabits/sec). The same you would have gotten years ago when Macs had USB-A ports, plus an inexpensive USB-to-Ethernet 10baseT chip.

The OWC docks tend to be full 40 gigabit/sec Thunderbolt docks with support for multiple monitors, USB 3.1 gen 2 10 gigabit/sec (unless it is a Thunderbolt 4 dock, then 40 gigabit/sec USB4 support), Ethernet, audio, Thunderbolt out, Mac charging via the Thunderbolt cable.

I think that I must be older than most of you since I remember ethernet from the early 1980s running over RG-8 coax using PL-259 and SO-239 RF connectors. The original (maximum) data rate was 10 Mbps (10Base5).

Yea, I was on that type of Ethernet for a few years in the 80's. The coax cables ran between cubes and you had to have the T-Connector so the next cube had networking. My computer career started while in college working for UNIVAC, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, with a beautiful view of the North East Extension of the Pennsylvania turnpike, back in '73. We had 80-column punched cards for communications (and 1" punched paper tape 🤣 ; I used to use it as a dot matrix banner and write readable messages, like "Happy Birthday Dad").

ChangeAgent wrote:

BlueberryLover wrote:

I think that I must be older than most of you since I remember ethernet from the early 1980s running over RG-8 coax using PL-259 and SO-239 RF connectors. The original (maximum) data rate was 10 Mbps (10Base5).

well since we are at it, I assume you are talking about AppleNet. My Lisa used to be able to use this. We have come a long way...

No, BlueberryLover was talking about Ethernet over coax cable (10base2).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2

Ethernet memory lane :-) (I believe 10Base5 pre-dates 10Base2 which was a lower cost/more convenient Implementation at the time).

Eons ago, I used paper tape and punch cards (at one time, I even knew how to use a drum to setup punch card fields). My claim to a tiny bit of fame is manually toggling in the bootstrap program on a DEC PDP-8 (before loading the program from paper tape).