Thunderbolt 2 Port and Docking Station with Thunderbolt 3/4

[M_A_D]

Hi

I have a Macbook Pro 2015 I7 with Thunderbolt 2 Port. Can I connect the docking station with Thunderbolt 3/4 in the link below to my Macbook ?

Docking Station Dual Monitor for Dell HP, Thunderbolt 3/4 Dock USB C Hub Multiport Adapter Triple Monitor to 2 HDMI 4K,VGA,Ethernet,5 USB,PD,SD/TF,3.5MM for Lenovo,Surface,MacBook Laptops

docking station usb c docking station laptop docking station docking station dual monitor docking station 2 hdmi port

www.amazon.co.uk

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

That seems to be only USB-C and not explicitly Thunderbolt, so you may be able to use it with a USB-A to C adaptor instead, but full support can be iffy.

 

[M_A_D]

Thanks for your help. I will plug it in and see what happens.

 

[Bigwaff]

Your 2015 MBP only has USB 2.0 5 Gbps ports. You are going to be incredibly disappointed in the performance of any peripherals attached to that hub. All peripherals will be sharing single 5 Gbps USB connection. Your best bet for expanding connectivity options for your 2015 MBP is a Thunderbolt 2 docking station. These can be found on eBay as they are not produced any more. On eBay, search for the following - "thunderbolt 2" (hub, docking)

 

[joevt]

It's USB-C, not Thunderbolt. You can tell it's not Thunderbolt because it is inexpensive, and because the product description says it's USB-C.

I don't know if a USB-A male to USB-C female adapter will provide enough power for this USB-C dock to make the USB ports and the USB to Ethernet adapter work.
USB-A male to USB-C female adapter go against the USB spec for various reasons but they work.

You can't get video from the USB-C dock unless it is connected to a USB-C port that supports USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode. Probably the only way to do that is to connect a Thunderbolt 3 device that has at least two Thunderbolt 3 ports using the Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter.

Actually, there is this device:
https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/dp-repeater-hdmi-splitter-6sha9-yznx5-zm58w
but it's limited to 5 Gbps (good enough for that USB-C dock).

 

[joevt]

Your 2015 MBP only has USB 2.0 5 Gbps ports. You are going to be incredibly disappointed in the performance of any peripherals attached to that hub. All peripherals will be sharing single 5 Gbps USB connection. Your best bet for expanding connectivity options for your 2015 MBP is a Thunderbolt 2 docking station. These can be found on eBay as they are not produced any more. On eBay, search for the following - "thunderbolt 2" (hub, docking)

The USB-C Dock has USB 3.0 5 Gbps ports, same as the MacBook Pro 2015. The performance will be fine if you accept that 5 Gbps total is the maximum bandwidth of all devices. Usually all devices will not be using all the bandwidth at the same time.

A Thunderbolt 2 dock will have similar bandwidth constraints if it doesn't have more than one USB controller. I think they usually have two USB controllers? A Thunderbolt 2 dock will probably contain a PCIe Gigabit Ethernet adapter instead of a USB Gigabit Ethernet Adapter which makes one less device using USB bandwidth.