Review: Satechi's Thunderbolt 4 Dock Expands Mac Connectivity

[jck1634]

This dock, the one from Razor, OWC, Kensington, are all essentially the same dock. They're all equally bad

 

[T Coma]

I clearly don’t see the value of these things.

First of all Gigabit Ethernet doesn’t cut it these days for a desktop hub.

2nd - if you connect a decent Monitor - it can charge your device and gives you already an usb-c hub (and there is not so much bandwidth available after video anyhow - specially with a Pro Display XDR )

3rd - I have observed latency issue with these hubs and simple USB devices - like a simpel wireless mouse.

So you mess up your desk and drain your wallet for nothing …

What an odd way to display one's narrow perspective.

But hey, kudos for admitting it.

 

[ikir]

Most of the pathetic US ISP can barely hit 300 (even that’s a big stretch to say). What’s the point of 2.5?

I don’t see the need as of this point. Maybe if all the ISP actually manage to offer 2Gbits internet then it might be useful.

Unless you are taking about additional use case that I’m not familiar with?

For LAN speed not WAN speed. It is very important in many cases to have fast internal network speed. For me it’s crucial

 

[jlc1978]

The internet isn’t the only use for Ethernet. The users that don’t need 2.5 or 10 Gbps also likely don’t need Ethernet at all.

Sure, some need faster LAN speed but I suspect the percentage of those users is small enough that it is not worth addressing at this price point.

Those that do need a different hub or connect via other means; and plenty of those that have faster Ethernet probably wouldn’t notice a slower speed either.

It’s a matter of figuring out where the most profitable market is an addressing it.

 

[foliovision]

The WD D50 docks are inexpensive (don't get one with an NVME drive, they run fast but too hot, heating up the whole dock too much, occasionally running a very loud fan – or if you do get one with an NVME drive because it's on sale, then remove the NVME WD SN750 drive and put it in an external case as I did) and fully compatible straight out of the box. None of the hanging and crashing I've heard about from the OWC and Kensington docks. I have a ton of drives and USB3 hubs, as well as dual 4K monitors and a high end audio DAC running off of my WD D50 at both work and home.

Just a single TB cable from my M1 Max MBP to connect and disconnect at each end. Single cable is what portable computing is about.

The only port which doesn't work is the headphone jack, whose Realtek chip does not appear to be supported by macOS Big Sur or Monterey.

Otherwise, on the high end, CalDigit seems to be the most serious of dock/card vendors in the Mac space. Eventually CalDigit seems to train their drivers. The hardware has been reliable for me (SATA3/USB 3 cards for Mac Pros).

 

[PhotodudeCA]

A Mac-oriented dock that does not work with the Ultrafine display that was build for the Mac? How pathetic...

 

[PhotodudeCA]

I like having a dock. It helps to connect monitors that are not built up for USB-C, wired Ethernet, microphones, cameras, lights, mechanical keyboards, etc. I would love to have a dock that would also include a KVM switch to allow me to switch between a home computer and a work laptop.

A lot of good monitors nowadays can function as a USB hub, making a dock obsolete, but those monitors still need to have enough ports to connect to all the peripherals.

 

[spicynujac]

Remove the SD and USB-A ports then swap out the pitiful 1Gbps Ethernet for at least 2.5 Gbps and it’ll start to look like a good product. Sometimes less is more, shoving in lots of cheep antiquated ports doesn’t add value.

There's a difference between old and antiquated. Plenty of devices still use USB-A.
I have more USB-A devices than USB-C, by far.
Mostly these are devices that don't have a need of transferring more than a few MB of data per second, and their manufacturers don't see a need of reworking them, just because something is "newer".

If these devices were built with USB-C ports, great, that's all we need, but they don't (including my $1,800 drone with a USB-A port).

Not everyone needs these docks--probably not even most, which is why Apple was able to get away with removing ports in the first place, but some people do.

And I never understood the attitude of "get rid of X because I don't use it."
My old macs were full of ports I never used, but that never bothered me.
Plenty of people use SD cards for media storage, and having a dock that they can plug them into is handy.
I'm never going to do media presentations in a classroom, but I am not upset that my machines have HDMI ports on them. I say the more ports the better.

 

[joecomo]

Most of the pathetic US ISP can barely hit 300 (even that’s a big stretch to say). What’s the point of 2.5?

I don’t see the need as of this point. Maybe if all the ISP actually manage to offer 2Gbits internet then it might be useful.

Unless you are taking about additional use case that I’m not familiar with?

What about the exotic use case of a local server

 

[joecomo]

Yes, 2.5G would have been nicer even if 10G was too expensive. That would come under "future proofing" for most people, though since it's useless unless your switches, NASs and other computers support 2.5. I guess 1G satisfies the masses


There are only a handful of true Thunderbolt displays with actual USB 3 downstream connectors. Most USB-C 4k displays can't support a USB 3 hub over a single upstream USB-C cable: 4k DisplayPort 1.2 uses all 4 high-speed data pairs in a USB-C cable, just leaving a single legacy USB 2 stream. So, on most displays, the USB hub - whatever connectors it features - only has 480Mbps of USB 2 bandwidth to share.

What you're missing about this dock is that it has 3 downstream Thunderbolt 4 connectors - up to 40Gbps (but obviously not all at once) - which is something that only became possible with TB4/USB4 and which you won't find with older hubs.

Also, in theory the USB 3.2 A ports (together with the TB4 ports used in USB mode) on a Thunderbolt dock should have a lot more bandwidth to share than a regular USB-C hub, where all the ports share a single USB 3.1 stream. On TB 2/3 the hub would contain additional PCIe-to-USB controllers. Not sure what happens on TB4/USB4 (which supports USB tunnelling). It's really frustrating that none of these "reviews" (or the makers own tech specs) never properly check this out or provide detailed specs.

Thing is, each of the 3 TB4 ports on (say) the MacBook Pro has it's own controller capable of (in theory) 40Gbps bandwidth - but there are very few single devices that actually need a whole 40Gbps to themselves - so hubs/docks like this are needed to allow each of those ports to drive multiple 1Gbps/5Gbps/10Gbps etc. devices. (Well, you can daisy-chain "true" thunderbolt peripherals if they've got a second TB port for that purpose - and a lot of small/portable TB devices skimp on that).

...also, each downstream TB4 port has to support 15W, but the host ports on Macs only supply a single 15W, so TB4 hubs are stuck with external power bricks, even if you don't want to use them for charging.

I understand that - could be a use-case, if you really need to connect a lot of stuff on your machine.
In practice I never feel that need - allthough I would have appreciated if Apple would have left the 4 TB Ports on the MacBookPro and just added magsafe.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I understand that - could be a use-case, if you really need to connect a lot of stuff on your machine.
In practice I never feel that need - allthough I would have appreciated if Apple would have left the 4 TB Ports on the MacBookPro and just added magsafe.

This: I would have appreciated if Apple would have left the 4 TB Ports on the MacBookPro and just added magsafe.

 

[svish]

Seems to be a good dock!

 

[foliovision]

Apple would have left the 4 TB Ports on the MacBookPro and just added magsafe.

Using all of one's Thunderbolt ports is awful. Unplugging and plugging four different devices every time one arrives or leaves a location is outmoded. Don't much care for the "improvements" in computers in the last ten years and the constant changes in interface (ADB/USB1-2-3 in many flavours, Thunderbolt 1/2/3/4), but Thunderbolt 3/4 docks are a huge step forward for portable computing, and make a three Thunderbolt/one SD card/one HDMI port configuration much more desirable. Even the absence of the very desirable pro-feature of an ethernet port becomes less of an issue (ethernet port is on your docks of course).

Personally I only use MagSafe when travelling. The rest of the time it's really just one Thunderbolt 3 connection to those WD 50 docks, with two 4K monitors and up to 20 other peripherals from DACs to external SSD to jog/shuttle wheels to XQD card readers. All powered off a single cable. Road warrior nirvana.

 

[theluggage]

allthough I would have appreciated if Apple would have left the 4 TB Ports on the MacBookPro and just added magsafe.

I would have appreciated if Apple would have left the 4 TB Ports on the MacBookPro and just added magsafe.

It's not clear if that would have been possible - people assume that the HDMI and SD slots have "stolen" a Thunderbolt port, but AFAIK Apple have never published details about what permutations of I/O the the Pro/Max chips support.

We know from the Mac Studio that the M1 Max has 4 Thunderbolt controllers (you can sort of see them on the chip photos) - but it can also support SD, HDMI 2.0, extra USB 3.1g2 and 10G ethernet, - which ought to be enough I/O for everything else built in to a MacBook Pro without stealing a TB4 port.

My suspicion, therefore, is that, on the 16/14" MBP, the "thunderbolt thief" is actually the built-in ProMotion display, and that that the 'spare' SoC video output used to drive the HDMI port simply isn't capable of more than 4k@60hz (which would explain why Apple hasn't supported HDMI 2.1 on the Studio).

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Using all of one's Thunderbolt ports is awful. Unplugging and plugging four different devices every time one arrives or leaves a location is outmoded. Don't much care for the "improvements" in computers in the last ten years and the constant changes in interface (ADB/USB1-2-3 in many flavours, Thunderbolt 1/2/3/4), but Thunderbolt 3/4 docks are a huge step forward for portable computing, and make a three Thunderbolt/one SD card/one HDMI port configuration much more desirable. Even the absence of the very desirable pro-feature of an ethernet port becomes less of an issue (ethernet port is on your docks of course).

Personally I only use MagSafe when travelling. The rest of the time it's really just one Thunderbolt 3 connection to those WD 50 docks, with two 4K monitors and up to 20 other peripherals from DACs to external SSD to jog/shuttle wheels to XQD card readers. All powered off a single cable. Road warrior nirvana.

The thing is, you do not use the full available TB bandwidth of the MBP, which is why you can make the (untrue for folks who need full bandwidth) statement: "Unplugging and plugging four different devices every time one arrives or leaves a location is outmoded."

I agree docks are useful, and have several. However a dock only has access to the TB bandwidth of the one TB port that it is plugged into. But folks who need bandwidth need all four TB ports on their MBPs.

Note that having four TB ports does not mean plugging them all in when and IF one can get by with less by using docks, but some folks may need all four TB ports, likely some with docks in them. Mostly that happens when an MBP is in desktop replacement mode rather than in road warrior mode. The ability to do both is why some of us spend $4k+ to buy the top MBPs; otherwise we might buy a Studio or Mac Pro + MBA instead. The reason I have not personally gone the Studio+MBA route is because of issues around database hosting costs ($+complexity) on multiple boxes.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

...Don't much care for the "improvements" in computers in the last ten years and the constant changes in interface (...Thunderbolt 1/2/3/4)...

Sorry but that statement is just way wrong. TB was an awesome Apple-only improvement in 2011 using mini Display Port, and circa 2015 when the interface became USB-C form it was again a useability improvement. Those of us who need i/o bandwidth have been thrilled by the ongoing TB upgrades, including TB4 which allegedly now allows driving two 4K displays through one TB port (which may be why Apple thinks laming the M1 MBP to 3 TB ports was acceptable).

 

[loby]

Even worse, looking at the vendor ID, this appears to be a Realtek RTL8153 ethernet NIC. Often these only reach 750MBit/s to 900MBit/s in practice and put a lot of load on a CPU core, because they use the ancient USB CDC-ECM class.

To add to the fun, docks with RTL8153 are known to take down routers/switches when they are attached to the network without a computer attached.

Unfortunately, many reviews of docks fail to mention such issues, since they do not test the docks for prolonged times under different circumstances (e.g. CDC-ECM CPU load is not going to be an issue if you are on 50MBit/s upstream).

At any rate, always buy a Thunderbolt Dock with e.g. an Intel I210/I225 attached to the PCIe express bus (which is tunneled through Thunderbolt). Not only will you have a proper NIC with offloading that doesn't peg a CPU core and will reach 1Gbit without issues. If the vendor was too cheap to use a proper PCIe NIC, then usually the other functionality of the dock also uses subpar components.

Can you recommend a dock that has these specs?

 

[BlueGhost]

This product may be an alternative to Caldigit TS4. The TS4 is still on backorder until late Sept.-Oct., depending on your country. Some are attempting to resell units for more than $550 (US, on the web).

Something I've seen in the past (mostly in larger data centers) is multiple 1Gbit/s, 2.5Gbit/s, or 10Gbit/s Ethernet ports on higher-end servers/minicomputers/mainframes. Sometimes for redundancy, and sometimes for connection to different networks.

For the casual user (including me, now in retirement), would be pleasant surprise to get internet at home that was greater than 25Mbit/s on a supposed 100Mbit/s plan. Still, for many home users, this is more than enough. Certainly not willing to pay more for 300Mbit/s (which would likely not deliver more than 75Mbit/s). I'd like to pay the ISP "up to $40/mo.", depending on the speed delivered ($10/mo. at 25Mbit/s.) That's not going to happen...

 

[sevoneone]

I’m sure the pandemic and the chip shortages are a major part of why 2.5gbps gear has not made a dent in single-gig’s 20 year reign. Consumer/SOHO grade gear 2.5gbps gear was starting to make rippples right before the pandemic, but it just hasn’t emerged. 10gig is too expensive for most to justify and would require new cabling for most. 2.5gig is a substantial upgrade more than a few small to medium IT teams would jump on if it was a viable option.

 

[ruka.snow]

Sure, some need faster LAN speed but I suspect the percentage of those users is small enough that it is not worth addressing at this price point.

Those that do need a different hub or connect via other means; and plenty of those that have faster Ethernet probably wouldn’t notice a slower speed either.

It’s a matter of figuring out where the most profitable market is an addressing it.

If it isn’t worth addressing at this price point then it isn’t worth addressing at all. There is very little gain to be had from 1Gbps Ethernet, certainly not enough to bother.

 

[0924487]

I’m not sure if I understand this statement? Care to say more?

10Gbit Ethernet per port is the standard now, for LAN-to-LAN connection. For the price, it underdelivered.

 

[0924487]

Most of the pathetic US ISP can barely hit 300 (even that’s a big stretch to say). What’s the point of 2.5?

I don’t see the need as of this point. Maybe if all the ISP actually manage to offer 2Gbits internet then it might be useful.

Unless you are taking about additional use case that I’m not familiar with?

LAN-to-LAN connections or within your private AS. You can have 1 Tbps if you want.

This is usually for local datacenters or SAN.

 

[0924487]

I’ll give you the local NAS needing the speed.

But saying you need more than 1Gpbs because ISP offering 2 Gbps is a bit of s stretch. The ISP that offer higher speed is few and far in between. On top of that people have to know that their network equipment would have to have the ability to take advantage of the 2Gbps speed which I doubt most will.

Speak for yourself. Don’t phantom represent others.

 

[aajeevlin]

10Gbit Ethernet per port is the standard now, for LAN-to-LAN connection. For the price, it underdelivered.

Okay, whatever you say.

 

[0924487]

This product may be an alternative to Caldigit TS4. The TS4 is still on backorder until late Sept.-Oct., depending on your country. Some are attempting to resell units for more than $550 (US, on the web).

Something I've seen in the past (mostly in larger data centers) is multiple 1Gbit/s, 2.5Gbit/s, or 10Gbit/s Ethernet ports on higher-end servers/minicomputers/mainframes. Sometimes for redundancy, and sometimes for connection to different networks.

For the casual user (including me, now in retirement), would be pleasant surprise to get internet at home that was greater than 25Mbit/s on a supposed 100Mbit/s plan. Still, for many home users, this is more than enough. Certainly not willing to pay more for 300Mbit/s (which would likely not deliver more than 75Mbit/s). I'd like to pay the ISP "up to $40/mo.", depending on the speed delivered ($10/mo. at 25Mbit/s.) That's not going to happen...

It’s your home network infrastructure. Not the ISP. Upgrade everything from the modern, to routers, to Ethernet cables, to APs and to your devices. You will get or exceed your ISP contract speed, in most cases. If not, call them.