I have a newish Mac Mini (mid 22) running the CDVR server, and using a 4-5 yr old external 8TB HDD for storage (WD My Book).
The HDD’s cable is USB-A, so naturally I connected it to one of the USB-A ports on the Mac and ran it that way for a long time.
However, I recently reshuffled how I connect my peripherals and decided to try the HDD on one of the USB-C ports using a USB hub. I ran a read/write benchmark utility using both connections, and was a bit surprised to find that the r/w throughput is better using the USB-A-hub-USB-C connection rather than the direct USB-A connection.
Just thought I would share this info for people optimizing how they hook up their external storage.