Review on StarTech Com 4 Port USB Hub USB by Shane Miller

Ok I've been working hard on this, my two Thunderbolt 3 laptops, both HP ( ZBook G5 , Specter 13t). I have TB docks for both big things standing aside (an old DELL, a very new plugable) but I needed something smaller that I could put right in front of my screen so I could plug in and play almost anything including NVME and high-speed flash drives. This docking station was perfect for that purpose WHEN I CONNECTED IT WITH TB3 CABLES! Various other high quality USB C Gen 2 cables from a variety of manufacturers do not work at all or reliably, although these USB C Gen 2 cables do work in other contexts. The bottom line is that USB C is still a fuss and usage for any given cable can vary wildly due to chipping etc. The specific TB3 cables I am currently using are the ITD ITANDA cables available here on A that connect directly to one of the TB3 ports on my ZBook G5. This made for a solid dock connection, but then on the downstream side I still have to use quality cables to get reliable NVME connections. I've tried a few USB-C Gen 2 cables and the only one that has proven reliable for NVME is JAVEX, at least over port A! Full speed 10G for NVME disks. Of course, the ITD TB cable also delivers full 10G speed from the C.Net downstream port, please note the cables used depend on your connections for this docking station. All other devices now work reliably, including a very high quality USB microphone and mundane things like a fingerprint reader. Of course, they don't need speed, but physical location in front of the monitor was important. A dock that does everything but NVME at full speed for a very reasonable price with solid performance and good looks. Recommended (with correct cable connections). A SATA SSD, mSATA, flash drive or SDXC+ card is very convenient for NVME drives for data transfer, e.g. as external storage, although of course you'll want something faster if you need to boot from NVME. But then of course you would just stick it in your laptop 😉.