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Back in the day I had a newer tech mini hub like this. But it wasn’t bus powered so it could handle full USB functionality and FW as well.

This device is crippled by its lack of power to the ports.
 
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This is a pretty good review of the older non-SSD Satechi vs AGPTEK w/storage.

It speaks to the benefits of the AGPTEK being able to place it on top vs. the non-slip feature of the Satechi.

 
I have an ancient Mac Mini (mid-2010) amongst my media equipment to control my NAS box and movie playing capabilities. I'd love to upgrade my mini to something much faster, but I keep the machine I've got because it has a built-in optical drive (that I've since upgraded to a Blu-ray drive). Satechi likely could have made this work with a built-in optical drive - that would have been awesome and I would have brought one right away if so. I do agree that not as many people use optical media these days, but still...
 
I loose one of my needed TB3 for a SSD which is good. But no additional USB-C ports (1 for 1, instead of giving me 3 or 4), no back ports, no additional useful ports. It is just an external SSD with a front headphone jack and front USB-C port.
 
Interesting, I had just got a Mac Mini, and I was torn between a Satechi hub and one with an SSD. Now I don't have to choose!
 
Such a missed opportunity. They are only using the USB-C protocol and not even the full speed, so why bother with SATA NVMe drive, they are more expensive than SATA 2.5" drives and the form factor is needlessly constraining the price. It might be thicker, but it seems to me not recessing the Mini would compensate for this and allow for better cooling of both the dock and the Mini.
 
Might be a better option...SSD

What makes that AGPTEK a better option? I can't imagine why anyone would need any USB 2.0 ports let alone 2 of them taking up space. I'd rather have 3 USB 3.0 ports and an extra USB-C 3.0 port.
 
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Such a missed opportunity. They are only using the USB-C protocol and not even the full speed, so why bother with SATA NVMe drive, they are more expensive than SATA 2.5" drives and the form factor is needlessly constraining the price. It might be thicker, but it seems to me not recessing the Mini would compensate for this and allow for better cooling of both the dock and the Mini.
USB-C is a connector. It's using USB 3.0 for the protocol.

In any case, it's $85. A thunderbolt hub would be easily 2-3x the price. They could have implemented USB 3.0 Gen2, for 10Gbps but maybe next version. The Mini M1 has thunderbolt ports on the back already. TB devices tend to be connected long-term. USB devices are frequently for quick-use and the front ports are convenient for that.
 
Why the headphone port? I'm trying to understand how that works. Does it "mirror" what's coming out of the the MacMini's headphone port? Does it show up as an additional output source to choose from?
it's probably seen as a usb output device that you have to select, since it connects via usb-c.
 
Shame it costs about 200 USD in my country. And that's for the one without M.2 SATA slot.
:confused:
 
All those ports should have already come standard on the the Mac Mini, there's a TON of space inside. I guess with this, at least you should be able to flip it around if you dont want the ports on the front...
 
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is it possible to boot from that SSD slot on an m1 macbook? or can i only use that SSD slot as a secondary storage drive?
 
Looks good and nice with the SSD storage, but it's worth noting that:

Internal SSD enclosure only fits M.2 SSD drives, does not work with NVMe.

So it's only M.2 drives using SATA = maxing out at about 550 MB/s in transfer speed. Still OK for most needs I guess. :)

But I don't think I've seen a drive of that kind that goes beyond 2 TB. Could be wrong, though.
OWC offers an $80 TB enclosure that provides the same (Black Magic) performance of the internal Apple SSD. Use the 2nd TB port on the Mini for that and configure the Mini at purchase with the smaller/cheaper 256GB SSD. Use this enclosure for the slower stuff.
 
What makes that AGPTEK a better option? I can't imagine why anyone would need any USB 2.0 ports let alone 2 of them taking up space. I'd rather have 3 USB 3.0 ports and an extra USB-C 3.0 port.
I don't think the unit is going to get the NVMe speeds (unless someone has one and can let us know), not worth buying a NVMe to put into the unit (unless you have an extra one hanging around). I have one of the AGPTEK (space grey) with my M1 mini and looks good (I like the contrast) and works good. Like the option of adding a 2.5 SSD instead of a NVMe. Gets good speeds on the SSD. Yes. the 2.0 ports are a bummer, but when using a USB drive with the 2.0 ports, cannot tell the difference between 2.0 and 3.0. I use the two 3.0 ports for external hard drives etc.

I only think personally it is better because of the option of the 2.5 SSD instead of a NVMe drive since it probably will not take advantage of the speed. Seems more practical to me. Again, just my option.
 
Like it for how it looks but won’t buy it because it lacks functionality. Fine for anyone that wants to use one of their 2 TB ports for less than USB-4 functionality with a slow SSD.

What is needed is a dock with this form factor that takes full advantage of TB3 or TB4. There should be at least 2 TB ports, one in and one pass through. Most, if not all, hub ports should be USB4 with PD support. Dare to be forward looking and drop USB type A support. SD card support good but should support SD Express, not UHS-III or slower. M.2 NVMe card support should be provided instead of a slow SATA SSD on A model that includes internal drive support.
 
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