CalDigit TS5 Plus Dock Review: Maximum Ports, Maximum Power

[drrich2]

It would be great to have 1 nvme slot inside for time capsule back up. 1 less clutter outside.

If it stayed cool, yes! From amongst the 11 reviews currently on Amazon of the CalDigit TS5 Plus:

Symex: "It does generate a lot of heat which is to be expected with all that this dock is providing, so keep it in an area out of direct sunlight or near a hot router, etc."

Luke Orlando: "It does run pretty hot but this makes sense and is moreover expected given all the I/O running through this thing."

Jeremy: "Definitely a bit bigger than my TS3 and runs a bit hotter but nothing concerning."

I have to wonder what a Thunderbolt 5 served NVME SSD would add to that.

Speaking of which, on the CalDigit TS5 Plus and other docks, does iStat Menus or do similar products give you temp. reading on internal components the way they do your Mac?

 

[richpjr]

It would be great to have 1 nvme slot inside for time capsule back up. 1 less clutter outside.

I am wanting this feature more and more. I have a TB4 dock and it would be nice to get rid of one of my external SSD enclosures.

 

[UrfinJuice]

It would be great to have 1 nvme slot inside for time capsule back up. 1 less clutter outside.

Razer Launches Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma With 10 Ports and Up to 8TB Internal SSD Expansion

Razer has just released its Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma, a premium docking station designed for creative professionals and gamers seeking expanded...

www.macrumors.com

 

[akbarali.ch]

Razer Launches Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma With 10 Ports and Up to 8TB Internal SSD Expansion

Razer has just released its Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma, a premium docking station designed for creative professionals and gamers seeking expanded...

www.macrumors.com

Almost perfect, just that, they put all the ports in one place. Putting power input next to frequently used ports is calling for a disastrous world wide power out-tage. I mean, once i plug the power and Ethernet, i dont see a reason why i would ever unplug them. so put them away somewhere safe and out of frequently used ports. I don't get who designs all these things?

 

[UrfinJuice]

Almost perfect, just that, they put all the ports in one place. Putting power input next to frequently used ports is calling for a disastrous world wide power out-tage. I mean, once i plug the power and Ethernet, i dont see a reason why i would ever unplug them. so put them away somewhere safe and out of frequently used ports. I don't get who designs all these things?

ASUS Master Thunderbolt 5 Dock DC510

ASUS Master ThunderboltTM 5 Dock DC510 offers up to 120 Gbps for high-performance displays and 80 Gbps for data, supports multiple 4K and 8K monitors, includes a fast M.2 NVMe® SSD slot, and provides

www.asus.com

Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 SSD Dock - SONNETTECH

Thunderbolt 5 dock features built-in PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD storage, Thunderbolt 5, 10Gbps USB, 2.5GbE, SD and microSD, 140W power delivery, and up to 8K displays.

www.sonnettech.com

Beelink | Beelink Mate mini 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 Dock for Mac mini M4

www.bee-link.com

😉

 

[buggz]

The models that have internal nvme slot, I am guessing you could buy the 1TB model, and then change out the nvme?

 

[drrich2]

The models that have internal nvme slot, I am guessing you could buy the 1TB model, and then change out the nvme?

I didn't think so because I hadn't seen a vendor advertise that for TB 5 docks with an internal SSD, but I Googled to double check.
9to5 Mac: Review: Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 SSD Dock – 140W MacBook charging, 2.5GbE, up to 6000 MB/s SSD speed [Video]

From that source:

"The top of the Echo 13 features the SONNETTECH branding on a removable black faceplate that exposes the cooling fan and NVMe SSD enclosure underneath."
"The fan (and heat sink) does a great job of keeping the Echo 13 cool to the touch, especially considering that NVMe SSDs can get ridiculously hot when under load."
"I also like the fact that you can easily access the SSD by removing the top cover and heat sink. This means that you can upgrade the drive later on down the line if need be."

At a casual skim, sounds to me like the author assumed it'd worth rather than tried it?

Oh, and a warning about the 1 terabyte version - "Please note that Sonnet says that the 1TB SKU features slower write speeds of up to 4000MB/s."

Somebody called Morgonaut claimed it is user upgradable: Is the Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 SSD user-upgradable? YES IT IS!

She did it. It worked. She warned Sonnett doesn't officially support replacing the internal SSD, but it looked pretty easy to do.

So, it looks like with the SonnetTech, yes you can, and the cooling fan (which the first review indicated was audible) did a great job of keeping the dock cool to the touch.