As a representative from Satechi (a prolific hub and accessory maker responsible for one of our former picks) explained to us: “All the bandwidth that goes to Ethernet, HDMI, USB and SD card ports requires energy consumption and that’s transferred to heat. Heat: Because hubs and adapters can get hot during use-especially, judging from our experience, when Ethernet is in use-we also measured the temperatures of our picks with an infrared thermometer after 15 minutes of continuous data and Ethernet use to make sure they weren’t dangerously hot.(Note that unless you have reliable Gigabit Ethernet service, you won’t be able to measure if the port is actually performing at full speed.) For each model in the test group, we verified the connection speed in Network Utility on a Mac, which displays the maximum link speed. Most hubs with Ethernet ports support gigabit speeds, meaning data can transfer at up to 1,000 megabits a second. Ethernet: A wired Ethernet connection is almost always faster than Wi-Fi and is more reliable, too.

Most hubs support only a 30 Hz refresh rate (the image refreshes 30 times a second) at 4K resolution, but a handful now support a smoother 60 Hz rate, and we prefer those hubs that do. We connected each of the hubs via HDMI to a Philips 272P7VUBNB/27 monitor with the resolution set to 4K, and we used the Blur Busters UFO Motion Test to confirm the refresh rate.

HDMI: A hub can be very useful at a desk, especially if you want to hook your computer up to an external monitor.

Our measured speeds landed largely in the 400 to 425 MB/s range we eliminated any model that was noticeably slower. Most of the hubs we tested advertised USB 3.0 speeds, which max out at 640 megabytes per second on paper. Since SSDs are faster than spinning hard drives, our use of the T5 ensured that the speeds we measured weren’t hindered by the drive. We ran AJA System Test speed tests using the Samsung T5 Portable SSD (500 GB) to measure transfer speeds.

USB-A speed: Although USB-A ports generally don’t support data-transfer rates as fast as those of USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 connectors, it’s still important to be able to transfer data quickly.

Two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, one USB-C power Two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, one USB-C power

Note that the Anker 10-Port 60W USB 3.0 Hub ships with only a USB-A–to–USB-B cable, so you’ll have to buy a separate USB-B–to–USB-C cable to connect it to many modern computers. As a bonus, it’s aesthetically inoffensive-it doesn’t look like it belongs with the greatest hits of ugly ’90s technology, unlike some of the other hubs we’ve tested. It has seven upward-facing USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 data ports with a helpful LED activity indicator for each it also has three 12-watt (2.4-amp) power ports just for charging. If you’re mainly concerned about connecting to your computer as many devices as you can, choose the Anker 10-Port 60W USB 3.0 Hub.

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