So TB's death is a fact?
Funny, didn't see it in the obituaries, and as it is living in the very monitor I'm staring at I can only state that I'm shocked!
Shocked I say!
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Matrox Launches DS1 Thunderbolt Docking Station for $249
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So TB's death is a fact?
Funny, didn't see it in the obituaries, and as it is living in the very monitor I'm staring at I can only state that I'm shocked!
Shocked I say!
Does anyone know why this doesn't have two HDMI/DVI ports? My '11 15" can drive two externals easily and I would've bought this if it had the two ports. Why would I use this when I can just as easily hook up one screen directly?
I actually do need to purchase a floppy drive one of these days. It's the only way to import tunes onto our digital player piano.
Well, Belkin has exactly this:
- 2 TB ports
- GbitEthernet
- three USB 3 ports
- Audio In/Out
- FW800
My only reason for getting a dock would be to connect two external displays to my MBP without requiring me to buy two Apple displays (and forgo wide-gamut displays thereby). I might buy an Apple TB display if it allowed me to add a mDP-to-DVI adaptor to its second TB port so I can re-use my existing DVI/HDMI-only wide-gamut display.
And BR is doing quite well. It's ok if many of you don't find thunder bolt useful. Many of us do.
Actually the MBP retina's don't have ethernet either.
I'm pretty sure none of Apple's laptops will have ethernet in the near future.
As for this... no thunderbolt pass through, no sale here. Yeah, it could be the end of the chain, but I prefer some flexibility in my cabling.
One of these TB ports is for plugging your computer in though right? What I really want is two TB outputs for multiple screens. Is that too much to ask for...
Like I do, I want multiple screens as well. But a DVI port would work fine for me as well (as would a mDP port) to plug in a second monitor (though I need also FW, otherwise the feed-through TB port would be occupied with a TB-to-FW adaptor).
I'm not impressed with this device either, unless you really need a one-cable connection to your desktop devices (keyboard, mouse, storage, network, display). I also don't understand why they put the USB 3 port on the front of the dock (why not on the back with the other data ports?).
However, for those asking for more USB 3 ports I doubt that would be very practical since the sustained data rate on those ports would likely have to be lower than the USB 3 maximum (i.e. you couldn't have two USB 3 drives connected to the dock and expect concurrent access at true SuperSpeed, USB 3 date rates).
USB 3 offers 5Gbps while Thunderbolt does dual channel 10Gbps. However, once you connect a display to this dock you'd already be well on your way to using up one of the two Thunderbolt channels (in fact, I think -- but am not sure -- that video has to run over a dedicated Thunderbolt channel, thus on a single channel you can't multiplex video with anything else). That would leave one 10Gbps Thunderbolt channel for everything else and thus having even two UBS 3 ports would mean you'd be at the end of the available bandwidth.
But, even if you could multiplex the video with other data (on a single Thunderbolt channel, which I admit may be possible) you'd still be pretty close to the bandwidth limit of a single Thunderbolt PORT once you had more than two USB 3 SuperSpeed devices connected to the dock (assuming the need for a video connection). I suspect that Matrox is just being a little conservative (safe?) by offering only a single USB 3 port, two might be possible but it would probably be running right up against the theoretical maximum for Thunderbolt (once you include everything else, display, ethernet, audio, and the two USB 2 ports).
However, for those asking for more USB 3 ports I doubt that would be very practical since the sustained data rate on those ports would likely have to be lower than the USB 3 maximum (i.e. you couldn't have two USB 3 drives connected to the dock and expect concurrent access at true SuperSpeed, USB 3 date rates).
USB 3 offers 5Gbps while Thunderbolt does dual channel 10Gbps. However, once you connect a display to this dock you'd already be well on your way to using up one of the two Thunderbolt channels (in fact, I think -- but am not sure -- that video has to run over a dedicated Thunderbolt channel, thus on a single channel you can't multiplex video with anything else). That would leave one 10Gbps Thunderbolt channel for everything else and thus having even two UBS 3 ports would mean you'd be at the end of the available bandwidth.
But, even if you could multiplex the video with other data (on a single Thunderbolt channel, which I admit may be possible) you'd still be pretty close to the bandwidth limit of a single Thunderbolt PORT once you had more than two USB 3 SuperSpeed devices connected to the dock (assuming the need for a video connection). I suspect that Matrox is just being a little conservative (safe?) by offering only a single USB 3 port, two might be possible but it would probably be running right up against the theoretical maximum for Thunderbolt (once you include everything else, display, ethernet, audio, and the two USB 2 ports).
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Really? You put the "docking station" as the last item on the daisy chain? Not elegant and not interesting.
Forgive me, but what exactly is the point of this device? The only use I can think of for it, is the HDMI out, but I'd rather just buy a $xx Thunderbolt to HDMI.
Blackmagic tb intensity extreme video capture box, Pegasus r4, LaCie d2, tb--> Ethernet adaptor
Being able to connect all of that to one rMBP seems like a pretty good use of the technology to me. Even a single 7200 rpm drive connected over tb is faster than the same drive when connected via USB 3 (tomshardware did some extensive benchmarks to show this).
This product is a miss for me though. No TB pass-through and not enough USB 3 ports = no sale
Yep exactly.
Wish I knew more about how Thunderbolt piggybacked on Mini-Displayport... genius move on whoever's part. People who are complaining that Thunderbolt is a failure -- I never know if they want it the protocol to die, or if they just want more devices to use with it. I personally just want more ports, even if there are limits on what they can do. Eg, only two TB ports on most macs means you have to choose between external displays or ethernet.
Swing and a miss....
I can see myself using this for many things and free up some USB ports but you have to be mental to grab this for that price tag... $99 would be pushing it... $250,
I can see myself using this for many things and free up some USB ports but you have to be mental to grab this for that price tag... $99 would be pushing it... $250,
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Unfortunately it is too much to ask for. Tb does not work like this. You cannot create two ports via a dock when connected to one port on the computer.
Well, IMO, with hindsight 20-20, it would have made a lot more sense to go with USB 3.0 in lieu of the early TB ports, and it probably would have made sense to not have an exclusive 1 year TB agreement with Intel since that's part of why it's taking so long for the larger market to respond.
Mini DP is piggybacking on TB and not the other way around. How many external displays are you hoping to connect?
Being able to create a Y-split in a TB chain was one of the features explicitly mentioned when TB was launched (whether the current implementation of TB supports that in a reliable fashion is another question).
Not exactly Apple's fault that their competitors aren't making stuff that is Thunderbolt-capable.
People compare TB to FW, but FW was an extra port that I used a handful of times. I use mini-displayport every day and hope to be using Thunderbolt soon after I decide to part with some money and upgrade my MBP to a rMBP and ACDs in two offices to a TB display (plus I can run the other two).
USB3 is cool and all, but I'd say like Thunderbolt that it hasn't revolutionized anything in terms of how we interact with computers... it's just faster and more capable. Neither port standard are going away. Innovation without disruption can be a beautiful thing.