Determining the precise connections you want on your setup will be daunting, and the complicated, arcane USB terminology solely makes it worse. You possibly can take a look at our explainer on parsing USB phrases in our Best USB Hubs guide. For the brief model, listed here are the fundamentals you must take note:
Test your ports’ speeds, and do not depend on model numbers. For lots of complicated causes, ports labeled as USB 3.0, 3.1, and three.2 can all have the identical velocity or wildly completely different speeds. Because of this, docking station producers have just lately began opting so as to add speeds (often written like “5 Gbps”) straight onto particular person ports. Use these ports for transferring heavy quantities of knowledge, and slower ports for issues like your keyboard and mouse.
Thunderbolt is greatest for lightning-fast knowledge transfers, or high-res shows. Thunderbolt is sort of a supercharged model of USB, and it even makes use of USB-C ports. Nonetheless, Thunderbolt ports are able to transferring large quantities of knowledge. This makes it ideally suited for issues like transferring uncompressed video recordsdata round, in addition to issues like 4K (and even 8K) shows or lower-resolution displays with additional excessive refresh charges.
Have in mind your energy wants. Most laptop computer docking stations may have some type of energy connector and USB Energy Supply (or USB-PD) that may ship energy by way of to your laptop computer. You may additionally typically see this known as “passthrough charging.” Most units you join would require their very own energy as properly, particularly if you wish to join displays or cost your telephone and pill. For those who plan to attach a number of power-hungry units, be certain that your docking station can deal with your energy wants.
