Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Satechi Introduces New USB-C Slim Dock for 24-Inch iMac With Enclosure for External SSD
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Presumably Satechi has access to the sales numbers, and only the silver and blue sold in high quantities. Makes sense.
wait, I thought everyone thought the minimalist ultra-thin design with almost no ports was amazing and revolutionary? We were told that we don't need those legacy ports...Apple knows best, and no one wants them. Turns out, people just wanted to spend additional money on another accessory that moves the lost thickness of the display down to the stand, where this big port brick can clutter the desktop. Now I get it!
ahahaha , I know right? so obsolete today in a year and a half from 2024, not super forward like a really progressive computer company like
oh, umm, never mind.
It depends on what you have already. "Featuring a 10 Gbps USB-C data port, 10 Gbps USB-A data port, 2 x USB-A 2.0 ports, micro/SD card reader slots, and NVMe Sata Enclosure"
Well since my external SSD drive is quoted at a little over 1000mbps and some NVMe drive are at least 3 times that speed…
Indeed. I have a Satechi dock, sans SSD, under my Mac Mini M1. Nearly all of the ports are now occupied.
I have another Satechi dock with my Macbook Air (Intel) 2020. Only two USB-C ports, one of which is needed for the charger. And the Satechi USB-C ports are pass-through, I think, so I can't add on extra drives or anything.
I use it in my studio. Have a camera tethered to it via one of the USB-C ports. HDMI out goes to an external monitor. It has USB-A ports of which only one at a time seems to work when I plug things into it (my Garmin Navigator for one).
So, so wish that Apple retained the Magsafe charging connector to allow me to use BOTH USB-C ports for different things.
Oh, the navigator isn't recognised if plugged into one of the Satechi's USB-A ports on the Mac Mini. Have to use the one on the back of the Mini itself.
The 2020 Mac Mini had 1-1 usb c usb a, the 2021 Mac Studio has 3-1 usb c usb a, those two usb a ports are convenience ports, never more than two and never more than the usb c which are the flagship, this backwards looking dock is coming on the second half of 2022 with a 1-3 usb c to usb a, is it nos exactly the oposite of what you implied?
No 2023 Macs will sport usb a, you might as well put a floppy drive in that thing.
A fantastic dock. Too bad it is not available in the other colours of iMac to match!
Darn. I need a USB A port to connect my floppy drive…
(Make that a CD drive and it’s actually true).
I actually have a Mac Studio and, even with the two USB A ports the first thing I needed to buy was a bunch of USB C to A adapters. Now, maybe that isn’t a deal-breaker on a desktop that has plenty of ports and maybe it would make sense for the next studio to have 4xTB4 and 4xUSB-C/3.1 - but a huge number of customers are still going to need dongles hubs and new cables to use their devices. So to now start hating on an optional third-party solution to that is a bit ridiculous.
Is it USBC 4? At this point, I wouldn't buy a USB dock unless it was at least USB 4 and capable of driving Apple displays.
No. The terminology is a can of worms but assuming that USB4 means the new high-speed thunderbolt-based protocols, this is plain old USB 3.1/3.2 - and, in fact, 2 of the 3 USB-A ports are only USB 2.
If you want USB4/Thunderbolt you'll have to pay a premium and I haven't seen any iMac-matched hubs so far.
This should be suitable if you want to add a fast SSD and have a few "convenience" USB ports - for which Thunderbolt would be an overkill. Plus, it's for a M1 iMac which only supports 1 external display which would be best directly connected to one of the iMac's built in TB ports. As a USB-C/3 device one of the plus points of this is that it doesn't include a display connection, since USB-C/3 can't support 4k@60Hz and USB 3 data transfer at the same time.
Problem is, plain old USB3 is still perfectly good for most purposes, so even with USB "adopting" Thunderbolt as USB4, it's still likely to remain a more niche, and hence more expensive, technology.
Also, with 4k/5k/6k displays, and maybe higher frame rates in the future using more and more bandwidth, it's making less sense to try and share ports between displays and other peripherals (which was a dumb idea in the first place).
Instead of one of these docks, I taped a cheap USB-C to 4x USB-A hub to the back of my iMac, to keep things wire-free from my perspective. It's a nice contrast from my PC sitting next to it, which is an absolute mess of 37 cords running between 3 devices.
That exactly what I have. The machine is up against a wall so I really never see it.
Blue is the most popular/non-political color worldwide. I can see why they did those 2 colors. But I agree, if they made them in all the colors they would sell more.
It's hard or expensive to provide more -C ports. Part of why -A isn't obsolete, in fact it's still more common.
They’ve removed the Ethernet port and SD Card slot. And lets face it, the SD Card Slot was terrible to access, and the Ethernet port is available in the power cable if that’s something you need.
Speak for yourself
Trouble is, some people are happy to have their iMac sitting in glorious isolation with wireless keyboard & mouse while they wonder what the silly holes on the back are for, others have a dozen peripherals to connect. I certainly needed a USB 3 hub on my old iMac.Docks like this one that blend in with the computer (there are others that blend in with a Mac Mini) are a good solution to that - the problem is that they really need to be Thunderbolt/USB4 rather than just spinning out a single USB3.1 connection and that is still expensive.
They've still gone from 4xUSB3 plus 2xTB3 plus Ethernet plus SD to just 2xTB3 on the base model, and just 2 extra USB-C/3 on the "better" model. Ethernet on the power brick is... well, either really neat or completely stupid depending on where your ethernet port is c.f. your mains socket. That's quite a "downgrade".
Lack of side/front ports for SD cards, USB sticks, charging etc. has been one of the form-over-function issues of the iMac since forever.
I've got a base Mac mini, And I do need the extra ports. I have a Samsung T7 drive hooked up to one thunderbolt port. The USB ports have a Mic in (usb) a LG external Bluray writer, yes I still burn discs, a Usb to 1/4 dongle DAC to my Yamaha receiver for speakers. I also use the HDMI port to my 43" TV/Monitor. I bought two cheap four port usb hubs ( 10 bucks a piece) and still have 4 usb hubs available. as well as one thunder bolt port available. The dock will be something that some people need. Thunderbolt SSD's are so expensive, unless your a pro video editor they don't justify the cost.
