Determining the precise connections you want to your setup will be daunting, and the complicated, arcane USB terminology solely makes it worse. You may take a look at our explainer on parsing USB phrases in our Best USB Hubs guide. For the quick model, listed below are the fundamentals it’s best to take into accout:
Verify 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. For that reason, docking station producers have just lately began opting so as to add speeds (normally 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 information transfers, or high-res shows. Thunderbolt is sort of a supercharged model of USB, and it even makes use of USB-C ports. Nevertheless, Thunderbolt ports are able to transferring huge quantities of knowledge. This makes it best for issues like transferring uncompressed video information round, in addition to issues like 4K (and even 8K) shows or lower-resolution displays with further excessive refresh charges.
Take into accout 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 will additionally generally see this known as “passthrough charging.” Most units you join would require their very own energy as nicely, particularly if you wish to join displays or cost your telephone and pill. In case you plan to attach a whole lot of power-hungry units, make sure that your docking station can deal with your energy wants.
