This Thunderbolt Station 2 is using Thunderbolt 2 technology, so it support DisplayPort 1.2 by default according to wiki. Whatever your Mac's Thunderbolt 2 port can support, it should support the same res and hz too.
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CalDigit's Thunderbolt Station 2 Launches in January With $170 Pre-Order Pricing
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This Thunderbolt Station 2 is using Thunderbolt 2 technology, so it support DisplayPort 1.2 by default according to wiki. Whatever your Mac's Thunderbolt 2 port can support, it should support the same res and hz too.
cant you simply get an Apple adapter? FireWire to Thunderbolt , only cost you 29 bucks or less.
I'm guessing its constrained by what permutations of SATA, Firewire USB3 and Ethernet are offered by chipmakers as single-chip, multifunction, PCIe controllers.
Maybe (e.g.) there are no single chips that do USB3 + SATA + Firewire, or older ones that do SATA + Firewire don't support the latest SATA standards for mutipliers etc.
They'd want to keep the chip count down for cost reasons anyway, but also, according to the Sonnet web page for their dock (which does promise Firewire and eSATA, but is sadly looking more and more like vapourware):
"Windows can only support a maximum of two PCIe controllers in one Thunderbolt device."
...moving to Thunderbolt 2 was supposed to solve this, but since almost a year on there's still no sign of the Sonnet dock, maybe it doesn't.
Thanks for the reply, I thought this was the case and you confirmed.
One thing I found anoying is that there's only 1 audio out, and it's at the front, so the spreakers would the one device plugged in on the front. However, it's not a dealbreaker, certainly when you considder the price.
Yes. The price is sweet. I can get few of this hubs (and it's thunderbolt 2) with much less price than others. If I want more ports with different interfaces, either wait for Sonnet's or just buy Apple's FireWire adapter.
I had the exact same thought.
The post is so polished that it is almost certain that it is an ad in disguise.
You can't. None of the thunderbolt dock could do that if you read their specs carefully.
But guess what, you can buy two Thunderbolt Station 2 and link them together then you can obtain two HDMI outputs or use two regular none apple thunderbolt displays. Of course, your Mac's GPU must be powerful enough to drive two displays.
This is what I have been doing with their original thunderbolt stations. I chained them together through Thunderbolt cable and output to two HDMIs.
The new version should work the same way. And you pay only 340 bucks for two stations.
Well, that actually gives some reasonable differentiation instead of more of the same. With this one versus the OWC, you're basically trading two USB3 ports and the FW800 for two eSATA and the ability to go vertical.
Though it's always nice to have everything, both port sets are legitimately useful depending on what hardware you want to use. Personally I'd probably go for the OWC since it covers what I've got on the shelf better, but the eSATA is pretty cool, especially if it does actually do PM as their reps are claiming.
Though it's always nice to have everything, both port sets are legitimately useful depending on what hardware you want to use. Personally I'd probably go for the OWC since it covers what I've got on the shelf better, but the eSATA is pretty cool, especially if it does actually do PM as their reps are claiming.
I lost interest and trust in OWC products when their mini stack would cause problems with Bluetooth. They say it is because that is just what USB 3.0 does, yet fail to account for that in the design or marketing. If this is a known issue inherit in USB 3 and Bluetooth, account for that in the design and warn people in the marketing. The comments in the blog continually failed to address this issue and just blamed USB 3.
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Thanks for pointing this out. I don't buy from OWC anymore because I simply don't trust them to design and build good products that work as you expect. There have been some hidden issues that users find out and then OWC points to the fine print or some white paper spec to shift the blame.
That's too bad. I don't need to have TWO TB stations just to use 2 non-TB Displays. That's just crazy. I'll just continue to plug the 2nd monitor to my MBP's HDMI port.
perhaps, but it will hog up the whole port, as it ends the daisy chain.
I know you are technically correct, but speaking as a consumer I'm just saying what I want. But at the very least in the specs it should be required that any Thunderbolt device needs to have 2 ports so that they do not terminate the daisy chain. To many device makers are being lazy and hurting the experience.
Because inXtron is a storage company, they focus to propose what would be the best solution in this regard.
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Did Sonnet say that? I dont think that is correct. I have two caldigit thunderbolt stations and they work just fine in Windows environment. I think it has more than two PCIe controllers.
You forgot to add
- Six HDMI ports.
- Six 10G-Ethernet ports.
- Six Audio In/Out ports.
With each bank of ports controlled by a dedicated chip.
I know I know, but you pay 3500 dollars for it vs Caldigit's $169 hub that has all below
1 1G Ethernet
1 HDMI
2 Thunderbolt
3 USB
2 Audio in/out
2 eSATA!!!!
It's technically supposed to support it, at least as originally described. I don't know if the actual implementation out there supports it though.
Its a direct quote from the 'Shipping status update' tab at http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15prothunderboltdock.html
I may be talking out of my hat here, but I think the caldigit dock would only need 1 PCIe device for Ethernet and 1 for a 4-port USB3 controller. Think I heard that the sound is actually provided by USB device (which would explain why there's only 3 free USB ports). The HDMI comes from the DisplayPort output of the thunderbolt controller.
It is a known issue with USB 3, across a wide range of brands. Apparently accounting for it in the design isn't (or wasn't) so simple otherwise most people would have done so.
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And the HDMI.
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Devices without a second TB port mostly are fine with USB 3 (exception SSDs) speeds, meaning a TB dock with are larger number of USB 3 ports or a USB 3 hub connected to a TB dock should work fine. Of course, whether a single TB link and a single USB 3 link (from TB dock to USB 3 hub) can support the desired throughput is another question (but then the two TB ports on most Macs come from a single bus as the do the USB 3 ports, and the HDMI is currently limited to 1920 x 1080).