Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Dock?

A

AppleFanBoy888

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 17, 2010
110
30
Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone knew about Satechi releasing a Thunderbolt 4 dock considering there's no information on their website. I just saw it on Best Buy's website and jumped the gun since they were having a Black Friday sale ($249.99). Funny enough is that I have a OWC Thunderbolt 4 Dock on preorder for December. I am now deciding if I should cancel my OWC preorder. Comparing Satechi, OWC, and Sonnet, they seem basically the same port-wise, not sure if the internals is similar. Brand-wise, I've never bought Satechi, what do you guys think about them?

Edit: Seems like the Satechi Dock has 96W PD charging vs 90W on OWC and Sonnet. Not much of a difference to be honest.
 
Last edited:
I JUST ordered one the other day from BestBuy, and it came yesterday. I'm a fan of Satechi products. I bought it for the full 96w PD, matching my other Satechi products, and good experience with their past products. MacOS recognizes the NIC (RealTek) and so far it's great.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AppleFanBoy888
Wolf359SD said:
I JUST ordered one the other day from BestBuy, and it came yesterday. I'm a fan of Satechi products. I bought it for the full 96w PD, matching my other Satechi products, and good experience with their past products. MacOS recognizes the NIC (RealTek) and so far it's great.
Click to expand...
Would you mind taking some screenshots from the System Information app that is relevant to the dock? Like the USB, Thunderbolt, and power? I am very curious in the internals.

Thank you!
 
Sure! I have a OWC TB3 to Dual DisplayPort v1.4 dongle hanging off the Satechi.

Satechi-1.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Satechi-2.jpg
    Satechi-2.jpg
    23.4 KB · Views: 126
  • Like
Reactions: AppleFanBoy888
Thanks for the screenshots! I really appreciate it! Not sure if it is normal for the mode to say USB4 instead of Thunderbolt 4. Are they basically the same thing? Anyway, I just got a email back from Satechi and they confirmed it’s a new item and it is being released first to Best Buy then later on their website.

Edit: Decided to cancel my OWC dock preorder as the Satechi is $30 cheaper (Black Friday sale) and basically has all the same functionality.
 
Wolf359SD said:
I JUST ordered one the other day from BestBuy, and it came yesterday. I'm a fan of Satechi products. I bought it for the full 96w PD, matching my other Satechi products, and good experience with their past products. MacOS recognizes the NIC (RealTek) and so far it's great.
Click to expand...
I’m looking at the same one from Best Buy. I just got done returning two consecutive CalDigit TS3 Plus docks due to annoying coil whine, like a high pitched noise coming from the dock. Have you noticed anything like that on the Satechi? Thanks!
 
It is tempting to get that dock, but no video outputs is a killer and no optical for sound. I could use an adapter for one of the TB ports for video, but still, they should have included at least one video output. Caldigit has DisplayPort.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dolphin2421
I finally received the dock, no issues, and it is very high quality. Definitely keeping it! To be honest I was worried I was gonna have buyer's remorse, return it, and reorder the OWC TB4 dock but I have none! I do have one concern about this dock for other people which is support for Apple's USB SuperDrive as there is no information nor drivers from Satechi to enable it. The OWC TB4 dock seems to support it according to the product page. Luckily, I went disc-less years ago so this isn't really an issue for me.
JosamHid said:
I’m looking at the same one from Best Buy. I just got done returning two consecutive CalDigit TS3 Plus docks due to annoying coil whine, like a high pitched noise coming from the dock. Have you noticed anything like that on the Satechi? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Mine doesn't make a sound at all!
Berries-A-Million said:
It is tempting to get that dock, but no video outputs is a killer and no optical for sound. I could use an adapter for one of the TB ports for video, but still, they should have included at least one video output. Caldigit has DisplayPort.
Click to expand...
It can be but if you look at the current mainstream TB4 full-sized docks, most have the same ports configuration (Likely all using similar hardware). I believe the Caldigit dock is TB3 as well. My requirement for a dock was multiple downstream TB ports which only TB4 docks have, AFAIK. To each their own.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JosamHid
AppleFanBoy888 said:
I finally received the dock, no issues, and it is very high quality. Definitely keeping it! To be honest I was worried I was gonna have buyer's remorse, return it, and reorder the OWC TB4 dock but I have none! I do have one concern about this dock for other people which is support for Apple's USB SuperDrive as there is no information nor drivers from Satechi to enable it. The OWC TB4 dock seems to support it according to the product page. Luckily, I went disc-less years ago so this isn't really an issue for me.

Mine doesn't make a sound at all!

It can be but if you look at the current mainstream TB4 full-sized docks, most have the same ports configuration (Likely all using similar hardware). I believe the Caldigit dock is TB3 as well. My requirement for a dock was multiple downstream TB ports which only TB4 docks have, AFAIK. To each their own.
Click to expand...
Caldigit is coming out with a Tb4 dock they told me. I'll wait for theirs.
 
Update: The NIC being used is a Realtek RTL8153 USB 3.0-to-Gigabit Ethernet which uses Apple's UserECM driver. This driver is used in most (if not all) USB-based ethernet adapters. Unfortunately, this driver is known to use a fair amount of the CPU to process network data. For most people though, it is unnoticeable. For me, it is. You see, I saturate the gigabit link often and I prefer that the NIC do all the processing. Not the CPU. To solve this issue, I used Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter with Apple's TB3 to TB2 adapter. This is an expensive option but I already had these accessories. An ideal design is using a PCIe-based NIC in the dock which to my knowledge doesn't exist yet in TB4 docks, maybe in the future. Despite this issue, I am still keeping this dock. It's starting to grow on me especially after today's press release.
 
I ended up purchasing this dock and have used it for a bit over a week. Thankfully, my concerns about coil whine were for nothing - this dock is silent. Another interesting difference I noticed between the Satechi and the CalDigit TS3+ that I returned is that whenever I received a notification while the Mac was sleeping, the CalDigit would momentarily wake my external monitors. This doesn't happen with the Satechi. Not sure which is the "correct" behavior from a technical perspective, but for me, the Satechi is much preferred in this regard.
 
AppleFanBoy888 said:
Update: The NIC being used is a Realtek RTL8153 USB 3.0-to-Gigabit Ethernet which uses Apple's UserECM driver. This driver is used in most (if not all) USB-based ethernet adapters. Unfortunately, this driver is known to use a fair amount of the CPU to process network data. For most people though, it is unnoticeable. For me, it is. You see, I saturate the gigabit link often and I prefer that the NIC do all the processing. Not the CPU. To solve this issue, I used Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter with Apple's TB3 to TB2 adapter. This is an expensive option but I already had these accessories. An ideal design is using a PCIe-based NIC in the dock which to my knowledge doesn't exist yet in TB4 docks, maybe in the future. Despite this issue, I am still keeping this dock. It's starting to grow on me especially after today's press release.
Click to expand...
Yes - this dock uses RTL8153 chipset. Satechi confirmed it. I experienced the same problem you reported with OWC Thunderbolt 4 dock which also uses RTL8153 chipset. As of now, Realtek does not offer a DriveKit compatible driver for MacOS Big Sur.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AppleFanBoy888
Has anyone had issues with this dock not properly waking up monitors/USB devices? I currently have the TS3 plus but I'm thinking about returning it for this dock.
 
I was able to pick up this dock today. I am only able to get it to run 2 external monitors. Anyone have luck getting it to run three monitors? I have three LG 24Inch Ultra Fines with a 14in MBP M1 Max
 
lrb3000 said:
I was able to pick up this dock today. I am only able to get it to run 2 external monitors. Anyone have luck getting it to run three monitors? I have three LG 24Inch Ultra Fines with a 14in MBP M1 Max
Click to expand...
AFAIK, all TB4 docks only support 2x4k@60Hz displays. Probably a limitation of the PCIe bandwidth of the docks, but not sure. Sorry to tell you.
 
The OWC Thunderbolt dock Ethernet port delivers about 60% of 1GB. They said the other posts consume the bandwidth, even when NOT IN USE. Returned mine. They are extremely customer unfriendly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back