Good link regarding
USB-C PD & data transfer as well as how the various USB ports (A, B & C) are used.
Something I did not know about how USB in general does things.
The point is that because USB is a master/slave protocol the functions of two USB-C ports on a USB-C dock has to be split up to allow for more than one master. The laptop is the master of the data portion and the power brick is master of the power portion. It's rare to see more than two USB-C ports on a dock because the USB protocol doesn't really allow for more. If a dock has more than two USB-C ports then the other USB-C ports will have some limits on the port functions to avoid having to deal with more than one master, or the dock is using a more complex protocol like Thunderbolt that is not master/slave but peer/peer.
So still sounds like that a PD port is only to be used for power
or data but not both at the same time.
As Spock would say "Interesting".
So if I read that right, if PD is divorced from the master/slave (by supplying power from say a barrel connector) one could use the 4 wire USB 3.0 master/slave data protocol & achieve a higher data rate than USB 2.0. That would also allow for higher PD than 100W. Effectively limited only by the current handling of the barrel connector.
This makes sense as many USB 3.0 to SATAIII adapters have external wall warts to supply power to the SATA power port.
Did I glean that correctly?
Or am I all FUBAR & in need to re-read that reference.
Pup