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

Sonnet Echo 15 dock for the nMP

Cubemmal said:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15thunderboltdock.html

  • Hey, it's black!
  • It's aluminum!
  • It takes up to two SSD's
  • It has a CD drive
  • And copious ports

I've got ports coming out my ears since I have two TB monitors for the nMP, but I also have two SSD's which need a TB enclosure. This seems to be one of the better choices, thoughts?
Click to expand...

Hopefully they finally release either the base or the PRO sometime soon. They only announced it back in April and I pre-oredered it in July.... 6 months later and I am still waiting.
 
I was so excited
Then sad
Then gave up and moved on a month ago
It will probably come out tomorrow now :)
 
Cubemmal said:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15thunderboltdock.html

  • Hey, it's black!
  • It's aluminum!
  • It takes up to two SSD's
  • It has a CD drive
  • And copious ports

I've got ports coming out my ears since I have two TB monitors for the nMP, but I also have two SSD's which need a TB enclosure. This seems to be one of the better choices, thoughts?
Click to expand...
And one of the ports is firewire. Look at what it covers:
  • Thunderbolt Dock w/USB ports (since they all have them)
  • Optical Drive w/enclosure
  • 1 or 2 external disk enclosures
Looking at it this way, it cuts 3 or 4 boxes on your desk down to 1. Fewer power cords, fewer data cables, more space on your desk.
 
paulrbeers said:
Hopefully they finally release either the base or the PRO sometime soon. They only announced it back in April and I pre-oredered it in July.... 6 months later and I am still waiting.
Click to expand...

It won an award back April.

http://www.sonnettech.com/news/pr2013/pr042413_echo15blackdiamondaward.html

Must just walk around the convention looking at that the demos and pick what looks nice.

they are creeping up on the time window where it may make more sense just to kill this iteration and just jump to Thunderbolt 2.

Pre-orders being too small could have stopped it. At this point, the price is a bit stale too which probably isn't helping pre-orders. Driver issues and mainstream OS X fixes have been issues in the past on other TB products.

However, one problem they could have run into is when validating whether this works well when light up all the features at the same time. Drive a 100-1,000 Mb Ethernet data stream , FW800 drive streaming data, USB HDD recording/writing data , audio playback , DVD player in playback , and time machine doing full back up all at the same time. Stressing systems and bandwidth tends to shake out latent bugs that often go overlooked.
 
Since they altered the design there is there any pricing??

I agree this is a GREAT concept - and I needed it 2 months ago :)

What is SO hard about making this? I cant figure that out. THey have other TB products!
 
akrantz said:
This is really nice. This would be great for my new system. Any word on when it ships? I couldn't find anything on their site and I'm not pre-ordering vaporware.
Click to expand...

Nope, they announced it 8-9 months ago and pre-orders started 6+.....
 
never comming:(

I been waiting for this for ever too. Sonnet are really letting themselves down by having out of date info on their website, promising to keep customers updated and then remaining silent. The current info suggests shipping 'We are now estimating that the products will ship at the end of this year. Sometime before mid-December'. Where I am they have just a few hours left!
I'm in the UK and would have gladly pre-ordered this but it's not an option, this is for US customers only. Feeling particularly undervalued by Sonnet atm :(
 
I really wonder if we'll see those eSATA ports... I bet they'll turn into USB ports by the time it's complete.

abg0201 said:
I been waiting for this for ever too. Sonnet are really letting themselves down by having out of date info on their website, promising to keep customers updated and then remaining silent.
Click to expand...

The website doesn't say if it's TB1 or TB2. Perhaps that caused the delay?
 
I am unsure what the advantage is for a nMP user beyond the TB facet. This however seems to be a nice fit for non-nMP Macs and was curious -

Did anyone see what the actual dimensions are in inches or millimeters? If this was the same size as the Mac Mini it would be a great match in any colour. Also, how fast is the blu-ray unit inside (who makes it?).

This offering has me more than curious and a bit smitten.
 
Last edited:
Echo 15

I e-mailed Sonnet a week or so ago about the availability of the Echo 15 and this is the response I got:

Hi Andy,

Engineering was getting close to finishing earlier this month, but is currently evaluating the increasing feedback that we should introduce this product with Thunderbolt 2. We are trying to determine if we should release it as is or update it to Thunderbolt 2. What is your opinion?
 
abeasom said:
I e-mailed Sonnet a week or so ago about the availability of the Echo 15 and this is the response I got:

Hi Andy,

Engineering was getting close to finishing earlier this month, but is currently evaluating the increasing feedback that we should introduce this product with Thunderbolt 2. We are trying to determine if we should release it as is or update it to Thunderbolt 2. What is your opinion?
Click to expand...

Odd, I was just thinking that they should upgrade it to TB 2.0.
 
Same for CalDigit

abg0201 said:
I been waiting for this for ever too. Sonnet are really letting themselves down by having out of date info on their website, promising to keep customers updated and then remaining silent. The current info suggests shipping 'We are now estimating that the products will ship at the end of this year. Sometime before mid-December'. Where I am they have just a few hours left!
I'm in the UK and would have gladly pre-ordered this but it's not an option, this is for US customers only. Feeling particularly undervalued by Sonnet atm :(
Click to expand...

CalDigit has info on T1 and T2 units on their site but in an email response they stated that they had been shelved in favor of the T3. The T3 was delayed and is still only going to be Thunderbolt 1.

----------
phrehdd said:
I am unsure what the advantage is for a nMP user beyond the TB facet. This however seems to be a nice fit for non-nMP Macs and was curious -

Did anyone see what the actual dimensions are in inches or millimeters? If this was the same size as the Mac Mini it would be a great match in any colour. Also, how fast is the blu-ray unit inside (who makes it?).

This offering has me more than curious and a bit smitten.
Click to expand...

echo15tbadapter_overview.png


----------
Cubemmal said:
Odd, I was just thinking that they should upgrade it to TB 2.0.
Click to expand...

If I remember right you were looking for a fan-less unit but this looks like it covers a lot of needs. Thanks for the heads up on this.
 
ABCDEF-Hex said:
If I remember right you were looking for a fan-less unit but this looks like it covers a lot of needs. Thanks for the heads up on this.
Click to expand...

Yeah, actually though I discovered the Corning optical 33' TB 2 cable. So now I can put these boxes off in a equipment cabinet. It's hard to find a hard drive enclosure, or any enclosure, without a fan.

I ended up ordering a Promise empty 4 bay.
 
ABCDEF-Hex said:
CalDigit has info on T1 and T2 units on their site but in an email response they stated that they had been shelved in favor of the T3. The T3 was delayed and is still only going to be Thunderbolt 1.

----------



Image

----------



If I remember right you were looking for a fan-less unit but this looks like it covers a lot of needs. Thanks for the heads up on this.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the measurements (found it shortly after my post) on their site by chance.

This item, compared to other "docks," appears to be everything I could want/need/use whether TB1 or TB2. Size makes it good for being under my Mac Mini with of course a spacer. Later, it should serve well with the new Mac (mini) Pro next year. Nice to consider an accessory that will last. Only thing I have left to find out is about what they use for a blu ray player and how fast is it. So far, and I hate to say it so optimistically, I'm sold on it.
 
abeasom said:
I e-mailed Sonnet a week or so ago about the availability of the Echo 15 and this is the response I got:

Hi Andy,

Engineering was getting close to finishing earlier this month, but is currently evaluating the increasing feedback that we should introduce this product with Thunderbolt 2. We are trying to determine if we should release it as is or update it to Thunderbolt 2. What is your opinion?
Click to expand...

Reply and tell them that all of us at Macrumors feel it should be updated to TB 2.
 
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