Determining the precise connections you want on your setup might be daunting, and the complicated, arcane USB terminology solely makes it worse. You possibly can try our explainer on parsing USB phrases in our Greatest USB Hubs information. For the brief model, listed below are the fundamentals you need to be mindful:
Test your ports’ speeds, and do not depend on model numbers. For lots of complicated causes, ports labeled as USB 3.0, 3.1, and three.2 can all have the identical pace or wildly completely different speeds. Because of this, docking station producers have just lately began opting so as to add speeds (normally written like “5 Gbps”) immediately onto particular person ports. Use these ports for transferring heavy quantities of information, and slower ports for issues like your keyboard and mouse.
Thunderbolt is finest for lightning-fast knowledge transfers, or high-res shows. Thunderbolt is sort of a supercharged model of USB, and it even makes use of USB-C ports. Nonetheless, Thunderbolt ports are able to transferring large quantities of information. This makes it supreme for issues like shifting uncompressed video information round, in addition to issues like 4K (and even 8K) shows or lower-resolution screens with additional excessive refresh charges.
Be mindful your energy wants. Most laptop computer docking stations can have some type of energy connector and USB Energy Supply (or USB-PD) that may ship energy via to your laptop computer. You will additionally generally see this known as “passthrough charging.” Most units you join would require their very own energy as properly, particularly if you wish to join screens or cost your cellphone and pill. In case you plan to attach loads of power-hungry units, ensure your docking station can deal with your energy wants.