Dongles are a fact of life. We want smaller, lighter-weight computers, especially when we travel, but we don’t want to sacrifice capability. Plugging a dongle with multiple ports into our device can increase the number of tools we can use but not knowing how the ports are labeled can cost you efficiency.
One of the biggest inefficiencies of dongle use is that we don’t plug our power connection into the proper port. That means we run on battery power more than we want and waste the connection on something else, such as a thumb drive or external hard drive.
You can improve your life considerably if you plug the USB part of your power adapter into the power delivery port on your dongle. It’s usual indicated by a “bolt” symbol. That’s the simple part.
The more complicated part is that no two dongles are created equal. There are differences in how a hub manages and shares bandwidth between devices connected to it matters. You may have noticed that MacBooks and some Windows laptops that clone the MacBook design have two USB-C ports next to each other. Some dongle manufacturers take advantage of that by selling a hub that connects to both ports at once, and so it can share the bandwidth of both ports around.
It’s common for these hub devices to have a single upstream USB controller that handles bandwidth allocation between devices. If you have a USB 3.1 dongle – or hub – and have a faster USB 4 plug and device plugged into the dongle, you’ll only get the slower performance speed. It’s just like feeding a fire hydrant connection into a garden hose. The best solution is to get a dongle that matches your fastest port, such as a Thunderbolt dongle for a Thunderbolt port. Thunderbolt is a brand name for high-powered USB systems.
If you have a fast portable hard drive to connect to your computer or other device, the same principles apply. You need a dongle or hub that matches the speed of your device and the drive.
We can help you make sure your computers and devices are matched with a compatible dongle. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us with your computer’s specifications or the make and model of your computer. We can look at the specs and help you match up a suitable dongle. Don’t let it dangle.