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CalDigit's $199 Thunderbolt Station Shipping November 4
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Next morning....
First, everything working after being left running overnight, just woke the macbook up, and both other screens lit up. It's a bit odd, as the first screen (the TB->Dvi one) lights up first, then the HDMI->Dvi one. But no kernel panics, just seems to work (for my configuration at least).
@MacModMachine Doingthatnow,closed macbook, two screens, keyboard and mouse via TBS usb3 connectors. May try bluetooth later....
@WSFrazier not had a chance to disconnect which it closed, but I'd recommend the Lacie Little big disk. Mines a refurb, which they seem to have often (at least in the UK) and seems a bargain for the speed....
Speedtest done with a real spinning HD....Seagate Backup+ on a USB3 base.
Hope this helps everyone who's interested. I almost cancelled my order as when I was reading the beginning of this thread I didn't think I was going to get three screens. This was my primary requirement, with USB3 a close second. Glad I didn't now. I'm a photographer and occasional designer/programmer so screen real estate is important, especially when dealing with large image collections. This ideal (though one of the screens is now showing it's age...)
First, everything working after being left running overnight, just woke the macbook up, and both other screens lit up. It's a bit odd, as the first screen (the TB->Dvi one) lights up first, then the HDMI->Dvi one. But no kernel panics, just seems to work (for my configuration at least).
@MacModMachine Doingthatnow,closed macbook, two screens, keyboard and mouse via TBS usb3 connectors. May try bluetooth later....
@WSFrazier not had a chance to disconnect which it closed, but I'd recommend the Lacie Little big disk. Mines a refurb, which they seem to have often (at least in the UK) and seems a bargain for the speed....
Speedtest done with a real spinning HD....Seagate Backup+ on a USB3 base.
Hope this helps everyone who's interested. I almost cancelled my order as when I was reading the beginning of this thread I didn't think I was going to get three screens. This was my primary requirement, with USB3 a close second. Glad I didn't now. I'm a photographer and occasional designer/programmer so screen real estate is important, especially when dealing with large image collections. This ideal (though one of the screens is now showing it's age...)
Thanks for the recommendation! I've ordered it now.
Unfortunately, I tend to jump before I look. I've now read some reviews about it being quite noisy. Any comments on that?
Sorry, I know this is a bit off topic but my main reason for buying it is to get a dual-monitor setup working. So it might be useful to know if it's worth buying or if people are better off daisy chaining 2 Thunderbolt Stations. I assume that would work also?
did you have the lacie in the chain to make it work (just 2 monitors with lid closed) ?
Well, the official response is right in that way, that caldigit's box isn't feeding the 3rd screen if you have in the tb-chain from computer first caldigit, then some other tb-device and finally take dp out from that second tb-device.
Basically this is pretty simple: all tb-devices have one tb-controller that can extract one dp signal out of tb-stream.
Also, there can be more than one dp-stream in one tb-stream.
It's not the same signal, but there's basically a DP-HDMI adapter converter built right in. DisplayPort, DVI and HDMI are all digital signals and they're electrically compatible with the proper converters. That's why you can go from DP-DVI, DVI-HDMI and DP-HDMI.
Technically, yes, I believe you could. Thunderbolt can be daisy-chained, and the signals would be passed along. However, you'll run into hardware limitations first. either the GPU or Thunderbolt bandwidth would get saturated.
Exactly. That's the point I was trying to demonstrate in my previous post.
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TB=TB + DisplayPortNo. As far as I am aware there are only two display signals per thunderbolt channel.
No, I did not know that...
That IS a big deal. OK, so "Thunderbolt" is really a PCIe link plus a DisplayPort link, and the PCIe link does the data?
That gives you a little more breathing room with TB1, but you still can't hook 2 monitors up to one TB port unless they're low resolution, like 1,920. So if CalDigit is trying to run HDMI + TB off of just TB, that will be less bandwidth than the original laptop.
OK, obvious question - if the purpose of this is to subsume PCIe, why is it only at about 1/10th the bandwidth of current PCIe? If you go to all this trouble with the standard, why not either use PCIe 3.0 links or more than 4 of them?
That IS a big deal. OK, so "Thunderbolt" is really a PCIe link plus a DisplayPort link, and the PCIe link does the data?
That gives you a little more breathing room with TB1, but you still can't hook 2 monitors up to one TB port unless they're low resolution, like 1,920. So if CalDigit is trying to run HDMI + TB off of just TB, that will be less bandwidth than the original laptop.
OK, obvious question - if the purpose of this is to subsume PCIe, why is it only at about 1/10th the bandwidth of current PCIe? If you go to all this trouble with the standard, why not either use PCIe 3.0 links or more than 4 of them?
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Mine just arrived, and here is a very quick test on an external SSD. The SSD is a Samsung 830 128GB, in an Oyen Digital MiniPro enclosure, plugged into the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station USB 3.0, which is in turn attached to my 2011 Macmini.
I think you can daisy chain 2 apple's TB displays to one TB socket in a mac.
Or chain first one TB display, then some other TB box and extract dp signal from that.
(For one TB display it's only 2560x1440x24x60=5.3Gbit/s, is that too much for two of them...?)
So there can be more than one dp stream in TB stream.
And with TB2, witch includes dp1.2, you can feed one dp stream to multiple monitors (dp-daisy-chain).
Light Peak's and TB's idea is(or was) just one serial cable to do everything. Putting 40 PCIe lanes to 10 cables and then wrapping them together does not fit Apple's idea of shrinking everything beyond feasible.
I guess that having faster link speed than TB has, would be astronomically expensive in either copper or with fiber with all needed media converters.
External PCIe exists, but I guess it haven't raised enough interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_External_Cabling
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Nice review!
Although I'm frustrated that these "affordable" tb docks still don't have port multiplier aware esata, we can still rely that Caldigit is quality brand.
Only thing puzzles me is that usb3 read speeds dropped to less than half through the dock. Nevertheless they are still faster than waht used to be possible with fw and fast enough for almost all use.
So, I'm waiting for next gen Cal'D with esata with port multiplier...
The issue with Port Multiplier aware eSATA ports is that Apple's AHCI driver in OS X 10.8 and 10.9 don't fully support all implementations on "port multiplier" chipsets.
It's complicated...
Excellent and comprehensive review fortysomegeek.
I am puzzled about the disparity in read speeds we each got with virtually the same externals (Samsung 830 SSD, Oyen Digital MiniPro enclosure, CalDigit TS), as mine reported just above were 291 MB/s write and 346 MB/s read. The only difference I see is I am plugged into a 2011 Macmini.
I tested that Samsung 830 connected to a couple of different docking options.
With the SSD mounted in a Plugable USB3-SATA-UASP1 docking station, the read and write speeds were virtually identical (not surprising, since both the Oyen MiniPro and the Plugable docking station use the ASMedia 1053e chipset).
With the SSD connected via a Koutech USC130 SATA->USB connector, the speeds were a bit less, at 243 MB/s write, 253 MB/s read.
Thanks for the comments.
As for the differences. A few possible explanation:
1) SSD wear. That is a year old scratch drive I use for all my benchmarks. I also did a clean format. The reads may have degraded.
2) I had all the ports plugged into the Caldigit station at the time; full of USB, Thunderbolt drive chained, and ethernet going.
That may have impacted performance. However, that is the typical use case for this device. Expect it to be filled up and used as it sold.
I just opened the priority mail box.
The Caldigit box is open. No cellophane. Is that the way all y'all got yours?
