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Bhanu Hays photo
United Kingdom, Belfast
1 Level
702 Review
25 Karma

Review on Enhanced Connectivity: Cable Matters Triple Monitor USB C Hub with DisplayPort, USB-A/C, Ethernet, and 100W Charging - Thunderbolt 3/4 Compatible by Bhanu Hays

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Excellent port consolidation even with external MVMe drives

This works in Windows on a 16" MacBook Pro via Bootcamp. However, on macOS I sometimes have to disconnect and reconnect it to establish an ethernet connection to activate. This seems like random behavior as it sometimes automatically detects that everything is already connected and provides gigabit speeds. The 5Gb/s USB-C port is also great. NVMe access times are as good as plugging an external NVMe drive directly into the computer's onboard port, and as expected, maximum throughput is limited by the port's 5 Gbps limit. It doesn't matter as constant 5Gb/s reads are rarely needed, while accessing many small microsecond files is much more important to improve perceived and actual responsiveness and speed. Please see the image for some performance tests of NVMe drives. Top left - Apple's proprietary embedded NVMe device; top right - cheap WD Blue NVMe in an external case; and the same NVMe model in an identical outer casing running through a 5Gb/s port on this hub you're looking at is on the bottom left. As you will see, performance with a hub is almost the same as with a direct connection to a computer because access time is what matters, not maximum bandwidth.

Pros
  • GOLS certified
Cons
  • Makes me angry