Does it matter which port/hub I use when transferring large files between two external drives?

[jent]

I have a Mac mini M4 with one of those third-party docks made specifically for this model. I have an old external RAID enclosure and I want to copy a few terabytes' worth of files from it to a single-disk external USB drive. I'm hoping to use my 2TB NVMe SSD drive in the dock as a "middleman" drive, copying 2TB worth of files at a time, then moving it to the one-disk external drive. I could do it directly, but I want to avoid the noise and at the moment I don't have a spare power outlet for both external disks simultaneously, so I don't mind doing a few batches with the SSD as the bridge.

This leads me to a technical question that probably isn't too important in my case but I wanted to use the excuse to learn in general. Should I plug the external drive into the Mac mini's USB-C port or the dock's USB-C port? I'm not sure if the data needs to loop through the Mac mini itself or not, or if plugging it into the dock gets the data to the SSD more directly.

I also ask because I just did a dry run plugging my old RAID into the dock and after about 20-30 minutes of transferring a 1TB folder, the SSD ejected itself improperly, and I remember reading a comment about this happening frequently to docks/enclosures MediaTek parts. Not sure if it has to do with power draw or what, but here's another chance for me to learn something new.

 

[haralds]

I would use a direct connection. Docks have hubs in between, which may impact performance.
It should not matter because older drives use USB 3.
I would copy directly from one external drive to the other to save time and disk wear. Check how much free space you have on your system's SSD. It is likely significantly less than the 2TB you are trying to copy.