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Help with USB hub

R

Ratcheter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 12, 2025
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I’m looking for a very basic USB hub to connect to the USB-C port on a MacBook Air.

-I would like the hub to accept 2 USB-A cords for my printer and scanner.

-I would like this hub to charge my MacBook Air thru the USB-C connector so I don’t also have to connect a MagSafe cord to it.

I don’t know anything about USB hubs so I would appreciate help. From what I could tell it seems like most hubs that are powered will power the peripheral, but I’m not sure if it also means it would power the computer that it’s attached to. I’d like to just order something from Amazon that will work for me.
 
You're going to want a POWERED hub, preferably USB3.2, with BOTH USBa AND USBc ports.
It will have its own power supply block.

For MacBook charging, I believe you need a hub that is capable of "PD" power delivery.
It should have at least one "USBc-PD" port on it.

This means you should CAREFULLY CHECK all the specs as you look for a hub.

Here's an amazon page with USB3.2 hubs with (it looks like) "PD" specs:

Amazon.com: Usb3.2 Hub Powered PD: Electronics

Online shopping from a great selection at Electronics Store.
www.amazon.com

My eye caught this one (although it's more expensive than the others):

Don't buy "the cheapest".
Pick 3 or 4 "possibles".
Then read user reviews for each one.
 
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Ratcheter said:
I’m looking for a very basic USB hub to connect to the USB-C port on a MacBook Air.

-I would like the hub to accept 2 USB-A cords for my printer and scanner.

-I would like this hub to charge my MacBook Air thru the USB-C connector so I don’t also have to connect a MagSafe cord to it.

I don’t know anything about USB hubs so I would appreciate help. From what I could tell it seems like most hubs that are powered will power the peripheral, but I’m not sure if it also means it would power the computer that it’s attached to. I’d like to just order something from Amazon that will work for me.
Click to expand...
You just need pretty much any random USB C hub with power delivery (sometimes called power passthrough). It doesn't need to be a powered hub like Fishrrman suggests. Most USB C hubs have a USB C port where you plug in a power adapter (like the one that came with your Macbook with appropriate USB C cable) and that will pass power through to the laptop. They generally have some max wattage that they will pass but for a Macbook Air that's not really a problem.

Here's an example of all you need:

UGREEN Revodok 105 USB C Hub 5 in 1 Multiport Adapter 4K HDMI, 100W Power Delivery, 3 USB-A Data Ports, USB C Dongle for MacBook Pro/Air, iPad Pro, iMac, iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, XPS, Thinkpad

UGREEN 5-in-1 USB C Hub With a 4K HDMI port, a 100W USB-C PD port, a 5 Gbps USB-A data port, and two 480 Mbps USB-A ports. Extra 2 USB-A 2.0 ports are perfectly connected to your keyboards and mice.
www.amazon.com

Powered hubs that Fishrrman are talking about are only really useful for devices that draw power from the USB port, not charging the laptop. That's for stuff like USB Hard Drives and CD Drives. Not that helpful for printers and scanners which are plugged into the wall generally anyways. Plus when you plug in a power adapter for power passthrough the hubs generally become powered anyways...
 
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Thank you for all the help guys.

I’m starting to understand how it works with power pass through, and I was reminded that my little scanner is a mobile scanner that is powered by the USB port.

The Anker I was looking at will pass power only through the USB-C ports. So I will have to find one that will also pass power to the USB-A ports.
 
Hello! If possible, I can also join the topic. I am wondering which brands of hubs are good? I have heard that not all maintain good transfer speeds. I need it for external SSD drives and flash drives (3 usb А, 2 usb C, sd card). I came across mushrooms of the brands: Canyon, Anker, are they good?
 
Don't make blanket judgements on brand names as a whole. Instead, seek out reviews for each product that you like. One from <brand> may be highly rated and the next may be lowly rated. There's pretty much no more "<tech brand> only makes high quality stuff" anymore. Instead, it's turned into most brands have some great stuff and some crap stuff. Seek out many reviews to figure out if anything of interest is actually good.
 
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The Anker has tens of thousands of reviews in a quick search at Amazon averaging well over 4 stars.
The Canyon has no presence on Amazon so no reviews... so nothing on which to base how well it functions.

Digging into the Anker reviews and entering macOS in the search (reviews) box, I see many very positive reviews. However, one says that it does not work with 4K screens for macOS. That may beg for additional checking if that is something important to a buyer. A second review says it supports 4K at only 30hz and is iffy on charging a MB even when the hub is powered itself, requiring unplugging and then plugging the PD input or MB won't charge.

Again, it's always a good idea to dig into reviews of individual products to try to uncover any potential issues with Mac/macOS. Some other from Anker may overcome those issues just fine and perhaps some others by Canyon will have some reviews to provide some anonymous views of good vs. bad.

One that has high ratings from MacWorld is Pluggable 9 in 1... or the 7 in 1 variant for a little less. Another if it needs to be Anker is Anker 555 8 in 1. I didn't dig through the reviews for those but just went on MacWorld "top rated" so the reviews should definitely be searched for Mac and macOS specific comments.
 
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Thanks for the inspection and detailed description. I don't have a 4K screen, so this is probably not a problem. And "MB" not sure what it is?

Thanks for the suggestions too. I also liked the Pluggable 9 in 1 and Anker 565 though. Maybe between them I will ize.
 
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MB is MacBook. But if you don't have a MB, same applies to any Mac.

Portable Hubs like those are often used when one needs to travel too. For example, while you may not have a 4K TV or monitor at home, could you ever have to do a presentation somewhere? If so, they might have a 4K TV or projector. If your hub can handle it, you can bring it along and use it. Else you have to trust that they will supply the right kind of adapter at the event.

Or maybe you visit some family and THEY have a 4K monitor. You could then use your hub to connect and show them the new photos or videos you've shot at their full resolution.

I just had to "loan" my own MB hub to a fellow business presenter following my own presentation last week. They had a MBair with no HDMI ports. The event only offered an HDMI connection to the big screen. If I didn't loan them my little hub, they would have not been able to display their presentation on the group screen. Imagine 10 or so people gathering around a MBair screen to see it. :eek:

Lastly, a port cable of 4K 60hz can readily downscale to less than that too. So you can even use it with whatever you DO have that is < 4K. That little trick just doesn't work the OTHER way.
 
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I have a Mac mini and I didn't realize that it was a Macbook. :rolleyes: Otherwise, it is not a problem, it does not have to be used anywhere and will not have to be used outside of our country. And I won't include a display on it. I'm thinking of replacing the Mac mini m2 with the new M4. And so far I used a Satechi dock, which I like better, but they are 101 dollars and I decided to choose such a hub.
 
kukata81 said:
I have a Mac mini and I didn't realize that it was a Macbook. :rolleyes: Otherwise, it is not a problem, it does not have to be used anywhere and will not have to be used outside of our country.
Click to expand...
OK, so if you have a Mac Mini then power delivery is irrelevant - and unless you're using your Mini as a "semi portable" there's no particular advantage of a single-cable connection. Portable multi-port docks like the ones you linked to will work - but are really tailored to the needs of laptop users.

Depending on what devices you have, an old-school USB 3 type A hub (even plugged into a USB-C socket with a cable or adapter) should get the job done at low cost. Whatever connector they ship with, devices up to 5Gbps USB 3 will perform just as well plugged into a 5Gbps USB-A socket as a USB-C one.

If you want to obsess about optimising bandwidth, however:

The ability to have a "tree" of hubs to connect lots of devices to a single host port may be a major feature of USB but, generally, your USB devices will - potentially - perform better if connected directly to its own port on the Mini, whatever flavour of USB they use. There's an overhead from going through a hub - and on top of that, all of the devices connected to the hub have to contend for a single USB connection of the same USB version as the device. I.e multiple USB 2 devices don't benefit from a USB 3 hub, 5Gbps USB 3.1g1 devices don't benefit from a 3.1g2 device, and none of them benefit from being connected to a 40Gbps TB4 hub vs. a regular USB 3.x hub.

So prioritise your devices and try to move the slower or non-critical devices (thumb drives, mice, keyboards, printers, scanners, backup/archive drives) onto a USB hub to free up 'top level' ports on your Mac for the faster/speed/latency critical devices (displays, higher-end SSDs, audio devices if you're doing audio production). If you've spent a lot of cash on a super-fast SSD that actually uses 10Gbps USB 3.2gen2 you probably want to give that a TB4/USB4 port of its own so it gets a controller to itself.
 
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