Third-Party Thunderbolt Docking Stations Remain Vaporware as Shipping Dates Pushed Back

Fandongo said:

But, but...It hurts my inner Tim The Tool Man to know Raid drives (particularly of the mini multi SSD variety) are being insignificantly bottlenecked by USB 3 .

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Same here. Except you have to realize you will only see the huge benefit when copying or reading large files. But from where or to? Internal drive is already capped at 6gbs. I guess another array of SSD's, but then you are capping the TB port. I think when the new Mac Pro comes we will have some amazing power. I'd guess more than one TB chip and hopefully internal SATA III.

I think I'm just hoping for creativity with the TB port. Display docking station (TB cinema display) is a great start. But imagine a TB display 27" or whatever. You hook your laptop into it and play games because the display has an incredible video card embedded into it. Laptop fans don't even turn on. You know?

I'm thinking TB Retina display ever comes out, they will have to do this, because no mobile video card can power a resolution like that (well they can, just not smoothly).

aloshka said:

Same here. Except you have to realize you will only see the huge benefit when copying or reading large files. But from where or to? Internal drive is already capped at 6gbs. I guess another array of SSD's, but then you are capping the TB port. I think when the new Mac Pro comes we will have some amazing power. I'd guess more than one TB chip and hopefully internal SATA III.

I think I'm just hoping for creativity with the TB port. Display docking station (TB cinema display) is a great start. But imagine a TB display 27" or whatever. You hook your laptop into it and play games because the display has an incredible video card embedded into it. Laptop fans don't even turn on. You know?

I'm thinking TB Retina display ever comes out, they will have to do this, because no mobile video card can power a resolution like that (well they can, just not smoothly).

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I almost went with the fat macbook for 2x SSDs (256 or 512).
However, for the fat 2.6Ghz plus 2x 512GB SSDs, plus 16GB 3rd party RAM, you're pushing the $3,200 mark.
2.6Ghz retina, 256, 16GB = $2,500

I dig the size/weight reduction more than I thought (shoulder bag + DSLRs + laptop = sore shoulder).

Dump field photos/footage to the laptop.
Delete and dump to an external mass storage Thunderbolt RAID.
Transcode to Thunderbolt portable 2x or 4x SSD scratch disk for working projects...backing up regularly, deleting and occasionally reformatting when complete.


I don't have that kind of money yet, just thinking for the future.
That dream setup would be perfect for an MBP and a 2x(+) SATA III RAID SSD Thunderbolt Mac Pro.
The rMBP can handle most things quite well...
But I agree, an external video card and hot-swappable hubs would be a great addition.

Video/photo/audio people all drool over the potential behind Thunderbolt, and Apple's refusal to update the Mac Pro for them is unbelievable. Portable and Desktop workstations need regular integration... not half-assery

Edit: Earlier post I thought would be perfect in lieu of a Retina Thunderbolt Display:

Thunderbolt Display Mini
$600-$650
Extra wide 21" with these exact same ports
Detachable base, airplay ready...3rd party battery packs

Fandongo said:

I almost went with the fat macbook for 2x SSDs (256 or 512).
However, for the fat 2.6Ghz plus 2x 512GB SSDs, plus 16GB 3rd party RAM, you're pushing the $3,200 mark.
2.6Ghz retina, 256, 16GB = $2,500

I dig the size/weight reduction more than I thought (shoulder bag + DSLRs + laptop = sore shoulder).

Dump field photos/footage to the laptop.
Delete and dump to an external mass storage Thunderbolt RAID.
Transcode to Thunderbolt portable 2x or 4x SSD scratch disk for working projects...backing up regularly, deleting and occasionally reformatting when complete.


I don't have that kind of money yet, just thinking for the future.
That dream setup would be perfect for an MBP and a 2x(+) SATA III RAID SSD Thunderbolt Mac Pro.
The rMBP can handle most things quite well...
But I agree, an external video card and hot-swappable hubs would be a great addition.

Video/photo/audio people all drool over the potential behind Thunderbolt, and Apple's refusal to update the Mac Pro for them is unbelievable. Portable and Desktop workstations need regular integration... not half-assery

Edit: Earlier post I thought would be perfect in lieu of a Retina Thunderbolt Display:

Thunderbolt Display Mini
$600-$650
Extra wide 21" with these exact same ports
Detachable base, airplay ready...3rd party battery packs

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Don't go fat macbook pro. It's cheaper, but trust me when I say the retina is better. It's ubber quiet. I've used the MBP 15 for a few years and it was a damn vacuum cleaner 90% of the time burning of my lap. I got to admit the retina has me surprised. I have not heard the fans (thought they were broken), no heat (thought there was throttling), but it looks like neither. And I run 2-3 vms at a time doing hardcore sql crunching.

Also, once you go retina on the screen, everything else looks ridiculously blurry. I looked at a macbook air, and really cannot justify ever going to that ever again.

Mr Cook promised and said no worries professionals, mac pros will be here 2013. I am waiting. I also think, if they do come, I won't rid my rMBP and keep it and just figure out a way to get MP as well.

aloshka said:

Don't go fat macbook pro. It's cheaper, but trust me when I say the retina is better. It's ubber quiet. I've used the MBP 15 for a few years and it was a damn vacuum cleaner 90% of the time burning of my lap. I got to admit the retina has me surprised. I have not heard the fans (thought they were broken), no heat (thought there was throttling), but it looks like neither. And I run 2-3 vms at a time doing hardcore sql crunching.

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Oh, I went with the retina. I was saying the fat model--with the upgraded graphics card and the forced 8GB RAM upcharge--is actually more $$ once you add 16Gigs of 3rd party RAM/SSD.

I was surprised by what the HD4000 can smoothly handle. Gaming will kick on the fan, which is kinda loud. But a quieter loud... It's the leerjet of laptop fans.

Also bought it for the 2x Thunderbolt ports (Since 80% of the devices kill the chain). Now to invest in some Nigerian Prince who will certainly shower me with illustrious cables and docks.

Fandongo said:

I was surprised by what the HD4000 can smoothly handle. Gaming will kick on the fan, which is kinda loud. But a quieter loud... It's the leerjet of laptop fans.

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From what I understand the asymmetrical fan in the rMBP is, in terms of decibels, just as loud as the fan in the regular MBP. But the kind of sound it produces is more pleasant to human ears.

AidenShaw said:

A friend put an SSD and a 1 TB hard drive in his MacBook Pro, using http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

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Thanks! I found a similar caddy on eBay for $11, and now the MBP has 256GB SSD + 500GB HDD internal storage. Perfect!

repoman27 said:

If you look at the list of available Thunderbolt accessories, you quickly see that almost all of them are for doing work (professionals) rather than entertainment (consumers). And in case anyone's interested, I happen to have such a list:

AJA ioXT
AJA KiStor Dock
AJA T-TAP
Apple Apple Thunderbolt Display
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter
ATTO ThunderLink FC Thunderbolt to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel Desklink
ATTO ThunderLink NS Thunderbolt to 10GbE Desklink (SFP+)
ATTO ThunderLink NT Thunderbolt to 10GbE Desklink (10GBASE-T)
ATTO ThunderLink SH Thunderbolt to 6Gb/s SAS/SATA Desklink
ATTO ThunderStream SC Thunderbolt to 6Gb/s SAS RAID Desklink
Avid Pro Tools|HD Native Thunderbolt Interface
Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle for Thunderbolt
Blackmagic Design Intensity Extreme
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 3D
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Express
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Mini Monitor
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Mini Recorder
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K
Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF
Blackmagic Design Teranex 2D Processor
Blackmagic Design Universal Videohub Editing Interface
Buffalo Technology MiniStation Thunderbolt (2 variants)
Elgato Thunderbolt SSD (2 variants)
Freecom Mobile Drive Mg USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt
G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt (3 variants)
LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt (4 variants)
LaCie 2big Thunderbolt (2 variants)
LaCie eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series
LaCie Rugged USB3 Thunderbolt Series (3 variants)
Matrox MXO2 Thunderbolt adapter
Other World Computing OWC Mercury Helios PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis (5 variants)
Promise Pegasus R4 (2 variants)
Promise Pegasus R6 (3 variants)
Promise SANLink
Promise Pegasus J2 (2 variants)
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter (2 variants)
Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter (2 variants)
Sonnet Echo ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter
Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter
Sonnet Echo Express Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCIe Cards
Sonnet Echo Express Pro Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCIe Cards
Sonnet Echo Express SE (3 variants)
Sonnet xMac mini Server
Sound Devices PIX-DOCK
Universal Audio Apollo Thunderbolt Option Card
Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo (2 variants)
Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo

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Thank you for that list. I have a MacBook Air with 1 Thunderbolt port. I have an existing Dell monitor which uses DVI. I also have a gigabit wired network and a stand alone firewire hard drive. At the moment I can only connect to one device at a time.

Can anyone suggest which of the above devices would be the best choice for being able to use all three or at worst just two devices, at the same time? I have come across the Seagate GoFlex online but that is aimed at portable hard drives and as I have a synology disk station, in addition to my firewire hard drive, I might be paying for functions I don't need. It also only has 2 thunderbolt ports and ideally I would like three.

Maybe next time around

I've decided to completely give up on Thunderbolt, at least for the time being. I am using it for a second HDMI a/v out on my 2011 Mac Mini, it works spectacularly for that with a TB/ADP to HDMI cable. I sold my SATA Drobo, and I can support my USB3 external HDD with my new Synology RAID/NAS box, so I'm all set without this thing that may never come anyways. The prototype looked sure looked nice though!

rmwebs said:

Another sucky port problem....why is Apple always the one involved with new standards that fail to take off?

High cost of licensing + relatively low consumer usage = failure.

Apple/Intel need to really open the specifications up and stop dicking about trying to license the crap out of this or it'll be doomed...though it may already be too late.

It's firewire and display port all over again!

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Everyone who says FireWire is a fail, probably are totally noob. FireWire is a must for poweruser and professionals. The same will happen to Thunderbolt.
USB is just for everything else.

ikir said:

Everyone who says FireWire is a fail, probably are totally noob. FireWire is a must for poweruser and professionals. The same will happen to Thunderbolt.
USB is just for everything else.

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People have a hard time seeing beyond their own particular needs. It wasn't too long ago that "any" recording of HD video required a RAID array tuned for speed. Today you can record RAW video to a SSD or fast HDD.

Then there's just point where some people are confusing what Thunderbolt is. It's is the external manifestation of PCI-Express. It's not going fail because you are pissed you can't get a hard drive for under $100 with Thunderbolt on it yet.

The people that "need" TB performance are more than happy to pay the price of peripheral knowing that the days of dealing with RAID sets and associated issues is coming to an end.

New KwirDock

There's a new dock out called KwikDock, it has pass thru Thunderbolt connection, 3 USBs, Firewire, Network and has an integrated iPhone,iPad and iPod dock . I think its still only $79

Noooo! The belkin dock was updated again.

http://www.belkin.com/us/thunderbolt

At first I thought they had added another (3rd) thunderbolt port, so that I could actually connect both, my display with mini displayport connector, and an external thunderbolt ssd drive. (powered thru tb, thus having no tb thru port) But then I noticed they had actually removed the tb port on the other side, got rid of esata, and put the two tb ports side by side. Not nice at all. Now I'll have no way to connect a fast external drive.
Good thinking belkin.

Confused. So does it support two monitors now (mdp)?

That's all I really want. Two displays + Ethernet.

aloshka said:

Confused. So does it support two monitors now (mdp)?

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No I don't think so. Unless you own a thunderbolt display that can be daisy chained. But I guess if you had one, you wouldn't need this dock for anything.
Correct me if I'm wrong?

The dock still comes with two thunderbolt ports, as previously announced. (one for connecting to computer, and one for daisy-chaining) Only the esata port was dropped on the latest update. It would have been so much better if they added a 3rd thunderbolt instead of simply loosing one port from the dock. It used to have a total of 9 ports, but now it seems to come out with only 8. Or maybe they could have put an hdmi out to where the esata used to be, to support two displays.

Clearly, at belkin they no more have a clue of what people might actually need and buy. This pretty much narrows down the buyers to macbook air owners, instead of really bringing versatile connections, other than usb3 to previous macbook pro, iMac, or mac mini owners (that only have one tb port on their mac).

jakemate said:

No I don't think so. Unless you own a thunderbolt display that can be daisy chained. But I guess if you had one, you wouldn't need this dock for anything.
Correct me if I'm wrong?

The dock still comes with two thunderbolt ports, as previously announced. (one for connecting to computer, and one for daisy-chaining) Only the esata port was dropped on the latest update. It would have been so much better if they added a 3rd thunderbolt instead of simply loosing one port from the dock. It used to have a total of 9 ports, but now it seems to come out with only 8. Or maybe they could have put an hdmi out to where the esata used to be, to support two displays.

Clearly, at belkin they no more have a clue of what people might actually need and buy. This pretty much narrows down the buyers to macbook air owners, instead of really bringing versatile connections, other than usb3 to previous macbook pro, iMac, or mac mini owners (that only have one tb port on their mac).

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I agree. Well that is just stupid, they DON'T know what people want. What would be the point of the dock then? For 300$ add another 600 for a really nice decent monitor and you got yourself a Thunderbolt Display.

I just wanted two smaller monitors instead of one big one, which is why I was excited about this dock. Ehh that really sucks. Had high hopes for this.

jakemate said:

Only the esata port was dropped on the latest update.

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Wow - dropping the most useful storage port around.... I don't understand why they'd drop the killer feature.

Dual SATA III 6 Gbps cards retail for the $20 range, with PM, NCQ and FIS support. Add up to 10 SATA drives to one controller - and more if you use eSATA RAID arrays

jakemate said:

It would have been so much better if they added a 3rd thunderbolt instead of simply loosing one port from the dock.

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I don't believe that T-Bolt hubs or switches exist, which would be required to add an extra T-Bolt port.

I must say after reading the entirety of this thread that I'm pleased that Macrumors is populated by skeptics of Apple. I use Macs and recommend macs because I'm support lazy - I'm not always fudging with some plugged up piece of crap Windows PC that's gotten so bloated its user desperately and futilely executes some drive defragmentation utility or, worse, fails to de-install one brand of anti-virus before installing another. Some time ago, I kindly offered to help someone with his PC that had slowed down to a crawl and by the time I realized that the situation was hopeless (three anti-viruses running simultaneously!!!) and required a reformat, I'd already lost an entire day to mucking with the Windows bull$hi+, that's why I recommend Macs because I get to say stuff such as to not worry about viruses because the chances of seeing one are close to zero.

But that's about as far as I put Apple on its pedestal. I own two macs, a 2006 iMac 17 I bought for $400 some years ago, and a 13" Santa Rosa macbook 13". I just recently ordered a Mac Mini because it's time to trash the iMac - too damn slow - but I came very close to abandoning Apple and going Windows PC except for one thing - I can run windows on a mac and the mac is ultimately a unix machine beneath all its fancy crap and the hardware is good. I think it's my last Apple product I'll buy, though.

I don't own an iPad - my HP Touchpad I got for $100 is enough for me. I think it's sheer idiocy to spend $500+ on a tablet that doesn't do anything but hang out on facebook and play stupid games - and I when I see someone holding up an iPad to take a picture I nearly want to walk over and grab the damn thing and smash it on the ground!! (I don't have a facebook account, for what it's worth - a pointless waste of time)

The Microsoft Surface, on the other hand, has some merit - at least it can run a decent word processor and has Excel; the Surface Pro will do it even better. But who are we kidding; are people going to go around carrying a surface to their coffee shop to work over a latte? That's the gay apple fantasy Microsoft's trying to buy into.

Did anyone see that Tim Cook interview with Brian Williams? Geez, what the hell does that guy do to get that tan - he does it better than Trump - and is that a black stain on his lips from sucking it up too many times when under Steve Jobs - he was chosen to succeed him after all and it's not because he was just a hard worker! Oh and so it goes, mighty Apple's CEO rarely grants interviews - Brian Williams acted as if landing the interview was of greater importance than a meeting at the White House with the President himself. What an ARROGANT little PISSANT of a man Tim Cook is.

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

dm0003 said:

There's a new dock out called KwikDock, it has pass thru Thunderbolt connection, 3 USBs, Firewire, Network and has an integrated iPhone,iPad and iPod dock . I think its still only $79

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I really liked the look of that. That was until I read it's only compatible with a MacBook Pro and not the retina screen ones either. I have a MacBook Air so that rules me and thousands of others out. Perhaps they will eventually create something that non MacBook Pro users can buy and use. It depends on whether they have the resources and whether commercially speaking it's worth them doing it. I would have thought a market would exist. Not everyone own's a thunderbolt display.

I'm still after something similar to that for my MacBook Air but not sure what to get.