Your comments on USB C are very interesting. I have just ordered 2 days ago a few cables. Maybe I should have bought more expensive ones . I'll test when they arrive.
Expensive doesn't help sadly... see below.
Also avoid anything that has active components inside.
Well, I take it back that the Samsung T7 is reliable.
Wanted to get a couple of benchmark examples and found out the drive is failing, write speed went down to 15-300 MB/s.
I had to use the Crucial X8 which is a very performant drive but not as good as the T7.
First it comes with a faulty USB-C cable... only a straight USB-C cable and you have to replace it.
The T7 comes with 2 very high quality cables, one straight USB-C the other USB-A to C.
The X8 gets also very hot and does not have any power management function so it stays hot even in idle and consumes power without any reason.
But it has proven, so far, more reliable than the T7.
Here's the reference benchmark for the X8, connected straight with a high quality USB-C cable (very thick, usually a good sign):
This is using an unknown old USB-A 3.0 extension cable and a good USB-A to C cable (which I think is the 2nd cable that came with the T7):
This is what you want to see from another cable or an extension cable.
It's not going to ensure that the cable is noise or problem free but it's a good indication the risk is minimal
This is the connection I'm using right now for the PO100 AK DAC.
Keep in mind that even if most (if not all?) DAC are USB 2.0, it's important the cable works flawlessly at USB 10G.
Means it's high quality, more than needed, and the DAC should easily work constantly without any issue.
This is the cable I actually bought for the DAC and found out it was absolute trash.
An awesome "Premium" cable 3 meters USB-A to C rated at 5GBps.
It randomly switch to USB 2.0 data rate or USB 2.0 only for TX or worse...
This cable is guaranteed it will drive you mad...
(Note that the unusual speed of RND4K Q32T1 is due to PrimoCache RAM caching on this OS)
This is what you have to expect as data rate drop using a in between Hub:
Another example, about expensive cables, is this one.
This is a Yottamaster extension cable at 20G which I used almost a year with the hub above.
It's a 20€ cable which is quite expensive for the usual Chinese almost no-name brand.
Not a single issue until recently when it decided to fail...
It was able to support the hub above which is a 20G at almost full speed testing both the SSDs in parallel.
So always test your cables, hope for the best when you order and regularly test them to be sure they are not suddenly failing.
Reading reviews on Amazon doesn't help cause most of these brands, also the well known, are changing fabs every now and then.
Thus the quality of the cables depends on the supplier at the time and could be worse or better than expected.
Certified USB-IF cables are almost impossible to find, difficult to identify, extremely expensive.
Most of them are not really certified while claiming they are.
Even when they are really USB-IF certified but cheap, like the Amazon branded cables which I bought to test, they are scrap and they fail exactly like other cheap cables.
Best strategy; buy many, test them, send them back if not worth.
