Sonnet's Latest Thunderbolt 4 Dock Features Internal SSD Enclosure

[einsteinbqat]

I don't understand. Why so many people expect an NVMe SSD located inside a dock that shares its bandwidth with other devices to perform as fast as a dedicated/standalone NVMe SSD drive?

 

[dogcow65816]

Still no SFP+... despite Sonnet being one of the few manufacturers offering such TB adapters...

 

[saulinpa]

I don't understand. Why so many people expect an NVMe SSD located inside a dock that shares its bandwidth with other devices to perform as fast as a dedicated/standalone NVMe SSD drive?

If you install a NVMe SSD you expect to get faster performance than a spinning platter, especially when everything else on the hub is disconnected.

 

[chrfr]

Still no SFP+... despite Sonnet being one of the few manufacturers offering such TB adapters...

Sure, but those adapters cost as much as this dock does. The market for a $5-600 dock that offers faster ethernet is going to be pretty small.

 

[steve123]

It is likely that this product’s controller chip is dedicating one of the four PCIe lanes available for Thunderbolt 3 / 4 connectivity to the SSD slot.

Indeed, we are a hostage to the controller chips. Only Intel currently provides a TB3/TB4 chip and their most recent Goshen Ridge TB device chip only has one PCIe lane available for the SSD.

The ASMedia ASM2464 has a TB4/USB4 chip but there are reports there may be problems with it so there are no products shipping with it yet.

Because actual USB4 controllers won’t be out until late this year, so they are using less ideal components.

Yes, but those TB4 controllers are not yet available. Standards are still being finalized.

The TB4 and USB4 specifications have been finalized for quite a while now. We do need a few more companies to step up and design TB4 and USB4 controllers. Intel is the only one at the moment.

My NVMe USB-C enclosure from 2018 supports 1 GByte/s transfer speeds.

But your 2018 enclosure likely doesn't support a display, ethernet, etc. operating all at the same time? The "problem" with the current design is that the Intel controller limits the attached PCIe device to 1 lane. As USB4 catches on, we should see more controllers appear ... hopefully, the designers will make their USB4 controllers TB4 compatible as well. Sonnet actually acknowledged this issue a few months back when people asked them about support for TB4 ... they were holding off because of the lack of controller options. Looks like the "caved in" to the pressure to release something and this is what we get. Intel deserves the blame here.

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

How does this compare with Satechi's just-introduced Thunderbolt 4 Multimedia Pro Dock?

2x DisplayPort
2x HDMI 2.1
1x Thunderbolt 4 to host
1x USB-C 3.2 10Gbps
3x USB-A 3.2 10Gbps
2x USB-A 3.2 5Gbps
1x USB 2.0 for charging up to 7.5W
SD and Micro SD card slots
3.5mm Audio Jack In/Out
Ethernet 2.5Gbps
Kensington Lock
DC/20V Port - 135W Power Supply Included

 

[chucker23n1]

Indeed, we are a hostage to the controller chips. Only Intel currently provides a TB3/TB4 chip

The M2 Air uses an Apple chip for Thunderbolt, FWIW.

 

[chucker23n1]

Curious, what are people using the line out audio plugs for? An old school receiver? You'd think just about everyone would be rocking at least an optical port by now.

Don't those mostly take HDMI now?

 

[steve123]

The M2 Air uses an Apple chip for Thunderbolt, FWIW.

Apple integrates TB into the M2.

I do not include Apple since their chips are not made available to third parties to integrate into peripheral devices.

 

[Chancha]

Don't those mostly take HDMI now?

They are for directly plugging into studio monitors, which requires a line level input (higher gain than headphone jack).

But I'd venture to say, someone with a need of that wouldn't trust a dock in terms of circuitry noise / DAC / amp quality. They would like to have their dedicated DAC or audio interface.