Recommend me a good Thunderbolt or USB hub

[InuNacho]

I'm running into issues with my 2018 Mini setup as in I have run out of ports and I'm starting to run into interference/disconnects when they're running at full tilt.
I know I shouldn't but I'm chaining drives off of a bus powered USB 3.1 Gen 2 hub on a Thunderbolt port this has lead to the above disconnects.

There are 3x slower rotational drives that often read/write to each other. Would a hub based around the USB 3 A port work good for them? Since they all have external power, could a cheaper unpowered 3-4 port hub work for them?

Are there any Thunderbolt 3 docks that have nothing but USB 3.1 Gen 2 for my faster RAID 0 SATA SSD and NVME enclosures plus bandwidth for any other devices plugged in?

 

[joevt]

Are there any Thunderbolt 3 docks that have nothing but USB 3.1 Gen 2 for my faster RAID 0 SATA SSD and NVME enclosures plus bandwidth for any other devices plugged in?

Thunderbolt 4 docks are nothing but USB 3.1 gen 2.
Like the CalDigit Element Hub.
They use one or two USB 3.1 gen 2 hubs internally.
Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs require macOS Big Sur or later for full compatibility.

Rotational drives don't need more than USB 3.0 for full performance. Some can reach 250 MB/s.

RAID 0 SATA SSD USB is not as fast as NVMe USB.

A USB 3.1 gen 2 hub (and this means all Thunderbolt 3 docks that use Titan Ridge and all Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs that are used with USB devices) is limited by the upstream USB bandwidth of 10 Gbps.

An old Thunderbolt 3 dock with Alpine Ridge (such as OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock or CalDigit TS3+) have multiple USB controllers but only the Thunderbolt one is a full 10 Gbps. The ASM1142 is only 8 Gbps and the FL1100 is only 4 Gbps. But these are the only way to get > 10 Gbps USB bandwidth without buying additional Thunderbolt docks.

 

[InuNacho]

Thunderbolt 4 docks are nothing but USB 3.1 gen 2.
Like the CalDigit Element Hub.
They use one or two USB 3.1 gen 2 hubs internally.
Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs require macOS Big Sur or later for full compatibility.

Rotational drives don't need more than USB 3.0 for full performance. Some can reach 250 MB/s.

RAID 0 SATA SSD USB is not as fast as NVMe USB.

A USB 3.1 gen 2 hub (and this means all Thunderbolt 3 docks that use Titan Ridge and all Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs that are used with USB devices) is limited by the upstream USB bandwidth of 10 Gbps.

An old Thunderbolt 3 dock with Alpine Ridge (such as OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock or CalDigit TS3+) have multiple USB controllers but only the Thunderbolt one is a full 10 Gbps. The ASM1142 is only 8 Gbps and the FL1100 is only 4 Gbps. But these are the only way to get > 10 Gbps USB bandwidth without buying additional Thunderbolt docks.

My rotational drives are used as backups, media, and referencing large files. I've benchmarked them all and they only reach about 150MB/s.

The RAID 0 array reaches the 850MB/s mark, I don't recall the NVME but it is used in conjunction with one another. The RAID 0 is my video editing bay and the NVME is the Scratch Disk for all my creative applications.

Good info on Alpine Ridge, I'll look those up!

 

[joevt]

My rotational drives are used as backups, media, and referencing large files. I've benchmarked them all and they only reach about 150MB/s.

Here's a 270 MB/s example:

Of course, the random read/write are abysmal.

Good info on Alpine Ridge, I'll look those up!

Just remember on the newer docks you get more 10 Gbps ports (but they share a 10 Gbps upstream link)
An Alpine Ridge dock will only have one 10 Gbps port (the downstream Thunderbolt port). The ASM1142 controlled 10 Gbps port is actually only 8 Gbps and there's usually only one of those. The rest are all probably 5 Gbps USB (giving 4 Gbps of data) (there's two groups that share two 4 Gbps PCIe upstream links)
https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus-interface-bandwidth-allocation-and-diagram/