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World's Smallest USB-C Hub

Small enough for your taste?

  • Yes

    Votes: 20 87.0%

  • No

    Votes: 3 13.0%
  • Total voters
    23
jeffwong

jeffwong

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 19, 2015
10
5
Hi All,

Yes, you guessed it right, another rMB owner here. 2nd Mac I've ever owned since the Power Mac 6100, if you know what it is ;)

Well, just thought the USB-C adapters out there are too bulky for my taste, so I've decided to get my hands dirty and make one that's as small as possible. The circuit is not too difficult to build, but it was a headache to hand-solder this little thing! (and yes, it works at USB 3.0 speed like the one from Apple :)

Next thing I'm gonna do is give it a nice and compact enclosure. Some pictures for now:











***Update (14 October 2015)***

All the free little adapters are gone. And the power+usb adapter has turned into a real project on KickStarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...allest-usb-c-hub-12-macbook?source=macrumours
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...allest-usb-c-hub-12-macbook?source=macrumours



Your support will be highly appreciated. Thank you!
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: wchigo
I'm impressed that you managed to get it to work at that size, good job. You should make a how-to video (with a macro lens) :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: objektør
http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Comb-Hi...&qid=1440083975&sr=8-4&keywords=usb-c+adapter

71tFAmPhOdL._SL1500_.jpg
 
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jeffwong said:
Yes I know, this is the actually the white one in my pictures. Still very bulky for my taste, LOL.
Click to expand...

I do notice it's bulky too from the pictures. I still have my Apple USB-C adapter. I haven't used it at all since I got it, so I never bothered to look for a nicer one.

There's only one solution to the bulkiness, force everyone to adapt USB-C, and beat this legacy port to death.
 
Ha! been going all wireless? I use that adapter quite often, mostly for flash drives and external hard drives.

I actually made quite a few of these so that I can leave one on each of my usb hard drives and flash drives :p
 
jeffwong said:
Ha! been going all wireless? I use that adapter quite often, mostly for flash drives and external hard drives.

I actually made quite a few of these so that I can leave one on each of my usb hard drives and flash drives :p
Click to expand...

I haven't been plugging in any of my drives directly. Airdrop is much faster than USB 3, using Apple's Airport Extreme AC tower.

I have MenuMeters, and when I transfer stuff, it indicates the transfer rate stays at 33MB/s all throughout. And that's between 2013 Macbook Pro and 2015 Macbook on the same wifi network.

How is your USB transfer rate?
 
Last edited:
Wallabe said:
I haven't been plugging in any of my drives directly. Airdrop is much faster than USB 3, using Apple's Airport Extreme AC tower.

I have MenuMeters, and when I transfer stuff, it indicates the transfer rate stays at 33MB/s all throughout. And that's between 2013 Macbook Pro and 2015 Macbook on the same wifi network.

How is your USB transfer rate?
Click to expand...

AirDrop isn't faster than USB 3.0, you must be thinking of USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 would allow you three times this speed with only a mecanical hard drive, and up to 500 MB/s with a good external SSD.
 
Niarlatop said:
AirDrop isn't faster than USB 3.0, you must be thinking of USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 would allow you three times this speed with only a mecanical hard drive, and up to 500 MB/s with a good external SSD.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I would like to know real-life speeds with the AC router using AirDrop or just copying between networks. Can anyone share actual speeds? The supposed 800 Mbps is theoretical and won't ever be seen in reality. I would love to know since I'm debating whether there's any REAL benefit upgrading my router to AC (since one of my 2 computers is connected via Ethernet anyway).
 
Niarlatop said:
AirDrop isn't faster than USB 3.0, you must be thinking of USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 would allow you three times this speed with only a mecanical hard drive, and up to 500 MB/s with a good external SSD.
Click to expand...

Your right.

My needs aren't that much, so it doesn't take long to transfer all my stuff. I still haven't come to the point where I really need to plug in any drives into the Macbook recently.
 
FriendlyMackle said:
Exactly. I would like to know real-life speeds with the AC router using AirDrop or just copying between networks. Can anyone share actual speeds? The supposed 800 Mbps is theoretical and won't ever be seen in reality. I would love to know since I'm debating whether there's any REAL benefit upgrading my router to AC (since one of my 2 computers is connected via Ethernet anyway).
Click to expand...

Using the same Wifi network, 5GHz on the Apple's AC router, between two MacBooks, I get 33MB/s. Megabytes, not Megabits. That's within the same room. I'm sure in theory it could do more, but that's what I see.
 
Wallabe said:
Using the same Wifi network, 5GHz on the Apple's AC router, between two MacBooks, I get 33MB/s. Megabytes, not Megabits. That's within the same room. I'm sure in theory it could do more, but that's what I see.
Click to expand...
Wow...that is slow! Still only about the same as USB2. I was hoping for more of an improvement - at least to Firewire 800 equivalent. The other thing that really bugs me about the Apple router is that it is still using a USB2 connector in 2015! I know that they SAY it shouldn't make a difference -- but USB2 gets nowhere near the supposed limit of AC.
 
Niarlatop said:
AirDrop isn't faster than USB 3.0, you must be thinking of USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 would allow you three times this speed with only a mecanical hard drive, and up to 500 MB/s with a good external SSD.
Click to expand...
You are quite right. But, I really wish Apple would add USB3 to the Airport. It seems like a limitation if you connect an external HD to the Airport (I have one connected to mine - and I get around 33/MBs with my computer connected to ethernet - if it were USB3, I think I would have a much better speed, right)?
 
Apple is not going to release another Airport unless they are going to implement a new standard with it. Each Airport update has always been an upgrade in the 802.11 standard. The next one is 802.11ad.
 
Wallabe said:
Apple is not going to release another Airport unless they are going to implement a new standard with it. Each Airport update has always been an upgrade in the 802.11 standard. The next one is 802.11ad.
Click to expand...

Well that is bound to be several years away. Isn't anyone else disappointed about only a USB2 input on the Airport?
 
http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/131579652708

Thats the most slimline I've found to date and not a bad price. I've bought a few- one to leave on my printer cable (although when my desk and usb hub is set up my printer will plug direct into my monitor), and then one each for me and the other half to keep in our bags incase we ever need one. Also both have the kingston microduo 3c usb stick so that covers most bases.

I have the apple usb c adapter too as that came with my macbook (second hand) but prefer these smaller adapters
 
Wallabe said:
Not really. It does whatever I need it to do. I don't really connect an external drive to it much. Usually it's just a printer.
Click to expand...
I keep an external 1 TB drive connected to share between my computers over the network. Works very well, except for the slug-like speeds...around 15 - 19MB/s
 
FriendlyMackle said:
I keep an external 1 TB drive connected to share between my computers over the network. Works very well, except for the slug-like speeds...around 15 - 19MB/s
Click to expand...

An USB 3.0 wouldn't improve that sluggish speed. You can go as high as 25 - 30 MB/s with USB 2.0, it's the network protocol and silicon that is responsible for these speeds.
 
Niarlatop said:
An USB 3.0 wouldn't improve that sluggish speed. You can go as high as 25 - 30 MB/s with USB 2.0, it's the network protocol and silicon that is responsible for these speeds.
Click to expand...
How is it then that the AC wireless claims 850mbps or even 1.300mbps in transfer speeds? Wouldn't USB3 benefit those using AC routers and computers? Also -- USB2 has always been a disappointment - the claim of 480mbps is nowhere near the actual speeds achieved. 30MB/s is only around 240mbps. And the reality of USB3 is that it really ranges between 50MB/s to 90MB/s - which is still only 720mbps max. I do get faster speeds on connected drives (non-wireless - plugged in directly to my computer), but only in VERY short bursts. I would say the average is around 80MB/s. Nevertheless more than twice as fast as USB2.
 
Most of the time the bottleneck is on the drives itself (flash/mechanical). Also the claimed speeds are under ideal condition (short range, large file continuous transfer etc.)
 
jeffwong said:
Most of the time the bottleneck is on the drives itself (flash/mechanical). Also the claimed speeds are under ideal condition (short range, large file continuous transfer etc.)
Click to expand...
All I'm saying is that although USB3 is a tremendous improvement over USB2, it still has a huge amount of overhead - no matter what kind of USB3 device is directly connected to your computer. I do understand that many smaller drives have slower transfer rates. And, yes, with some files I see 120MB/s transfers - but still only in bursts, with drops as low as 60MB/s. I have done some reading to see how high people can get with the best usb3 externals, and it's still nowhere near 5Gb/s (625MB/s). I know that some of that can be the SATAIII protocol acting as a limiter, right? I know that HDD's are of course limited by the max rate of the disk (around 120MB/s at most, right), but a good flash drive or SSD with quality controllers should be able to maybe get up to the 400MB/s or even mid-500MB/s (or so I read).
 
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