USB 3 type A or type C?

[Tom_ZeCat]

My PC is a Dell Inspiron i3650-3756SLV which came with 12 GB of RAM. I recently upgrade it to 16 GB of memory, plus I added 4 USB 3.0 posts via an upgrade card in one of the PCI Express ports. So far so good. It all works. However, here's the upgrade that didn't work. I also sent off for a 7-port USB 3.0 hub. The idea was to have a hub of multiple ports on my desk within easy reach. What didn't work was the hub I got was designed to plug into a USB type-C port, which my PC does not have. So that hub went back to New Egg.

Now I'm planning to do another upgrade. I've got one more PCI Express port available, so I was thinking of adding another card with 4 USB 3.0 ports. Then I could give another shot at getting a 7-port USB 3.0 hub to sit on my desk. If I get one designed to plug into a regular type A USB 3.0 port, it can go into one of the ports from this new card.

However, I got to thinking. If I got a USB 3.0 card that also includes a USB type-C port, I could get a hub like the one I initially rejected. A 7-port USB hub that goes into USB type-C would work for me after all if I add a USB type-C port.

So that leads to my question. Is there any advantage to a USB hub that plugs into a type-C USB port versus the standard type-A that you usually get? If there's some extra benefit of doing it that way, I could do that.

Or would I be better off just getting a regular USB 3.0 expansion hard with all type-A ports and then get a USB hub that plugs into that?

[oshunluvr]

AFAIK, there's no advantage to the C type port except you can't insert a device upside down. IMO, to maintain future compatibility, the best solution would be to have both types of ports. I travel with 2 "converters" that allow type A-C or C-A connections because I have some devices that use C and some that are A and I never know what port might be available.

As far as how to go about it? If you can get a card that supports both types, go for that. IME a hub, while convenient, is often a downgrade in speed - more devices to travel through. Spend as much as you can afford and get a good and fast one.

Also worth considering is a Thunderbolt card instead of plain USB. It supports much faster speeds and will keep you future-proof a bit longer. I have small a thunder bolt hub that supports USB 3.1 A and C along with ethernet and hdmi ports as well.

[Tom_ZeCat]

AFAIK, there's no advantage to the C type port except you can't insert a device upside down. IMO, to maintain future compatibility, the best solution would be to have both types of ports. I travel with 2 "converters" that allow type A-C or C-A connections because I have some devices that use C and some that are A and I never know what port might be available.

As far as how to go about it? If you can get a card that supports both types, go for that. IME a hub, while convenient, is often a downgrade in speed - more devices to travel through. Spend as much as you can afford and get a good and fast one.

Also worth considering is a Thunderbolt card instead of plain USB. It supports much faster speeds and will keep you future-proof a bit longer. I have small a thunder bolt hub that supports USB 3.1 A and C along with ethernet and hdmi ports as well.

I like desktop hubs because of convenience. I have one circular 4-port USB 2.0 hub installed directly into my desk. I had an additional one, but it died on me. Speed isn't that big of an issue for me because I'm just saving files like LibreOffice Writer and Calc files, and some files like Photoshop and PNG files. I do some image editing in Gimp and PhotoImpact, so I keep my working files in Photoshop format and then save the final results to PNG. If the hub slows things down some, it's not that bad for what I'm saving. I am going with USB 3.0 if possible for the increased speed, but even at 2.0 speed, I'm not dying of boredom waiting for stuff to save. I'll soon have some new USB 3.0 ports on my PC and a powered hub on my desk that supports 3.0 speed.

I've found a PCI-E card that has 5 USB 3.0 ports outside and two internally. I have two main work thumb drives that I constantly save to, so I can keep those permanently plugged into those two internal USB ports, then keep their corresponding backups plugged into the hub on my desktop. I don't keep any work files on my internal hard drive. I prefer it that way. That way if at any time I decide to format my hard drive and reinstall Kubuntu and all my apps, I can just do it. There's no need to first run a file backup program. Then if I need to go on the road with my laptop, I just bring those main USB sticks with me that already have all my work files. Works for me. So I'll go with this 5-port external/2-port internal USB 3.0 expansion card. It should easily meet me needs with that desktop hub.

I didn't find any advantage to use USB type-C.

[jlittle]

IIUC USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is only Type C.

I've never encountered such a device, though that's a low bar. I imagine that a "dock" supporting 3.2 Gen 2x2 speeds would be expensive, as would such a port on a computer.

Sent from my VFD 822 using Tapatalk

[oshunluvr]

This seems a decent explanation https://www.cnet.com/how-to/usb-3-2-...-usb-standard/