sflocal

timmillea said:

The article is full of comments and opinions that will be out of date extremely soon. 

Apple subsidised the CD-ROM optical drive market before PC users knew of their existence and discontinued them just as PC users expected them as standard. Thunderbolt 5 is another forward-thinking but transitory spec. 

The Mac Studio has always been a hideous monstrosity and the kindest thing would be to end it. The new Mac mini, finally relieved in terms of historic size requirements to accommodate an optical drive is the way to go. The Mac Studio was half marketing and half a cover-up over the lack of a new Mac Pro. Apple have made plenty of missteps with Mac over the last five or so years. They make their money from iPhone and 'services' now and appear to have betrayed their core DNA. 

Clarus said:

jeffharris said:

Only 10Gbps transfer speed? 

That kind of blows, especially since the new mini has Thunderbolt 5 ports.

If you sit down and think it through, both decisions make complete sense.

10Gbps for the SSD is because the dock is a USB-C hub, and the 10Gbps max data rate of USB 3.2 is what is limiting the speed. So having the slot is like getting a free USB 3.2 SSD enclosure, because that is exactly the max speed of the $30 NVMe SSD enclosures you get through Amazon which I have several of. (10Gbps is fast enough for most uses.) No disappointment there.

Now, you can go and be an armchair quarterback and say “But SSDs can do 6000MB/sec and Thunderbolt 5 would let that happen, therefore this dock is useless.” OK cowboy, again, think this through: To achieve that, the hub would have to be upgraded to support Thunderbolt 5. But the problem is this hub is a replacement for their old Mac mini hub which the article said retails for around $100. And you are not going to find any Thunderbolt 5 peripherals (except a cable) on sale today for anywhere as low as $100. 

If you buy a 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 SSD enclosure today, the going rate is about $120. That alone is already a higher price than what this dock is supposed to cost. Based on the current prices for Thunderboltl 4/5 hubs, a hub like this supporting Thunderbolt 5 through the SSD slot and multiple ports would probably cost no less than $300. Satechi could probably sell a few of those, but Satechi knows they will sell a lot more $100 USB-C docks.

So I like to think of this dock’s SSD slot as a free $30 10Gbps USB SSD enclosure that saves a port. And that is a nice feature.

jeffharris said:

A couple extra USB-C ports would be nice, too. Aren’t we all trying to get rid of USB-A?

We have not seen a full spec sheet yet, only a pre-announcement. I also hope there are more USB-C ports. But by including USB-A, Satechi has again been smart. If you have actually read comments on the new Mini, one of the biggest complaints is no more USB-A ports. Yes, I am trying to get rid of USB-A myself, and all new accessories I buy are USB-C, but I still have several 10-15 year old USB-A devices that are still doing their job and do not need to be thrown out just because. A lot of people are like that. (Yes, of course we could all go out and buy more USB-A to C adapters, they’re cheap. But sometimes it’s nice to just plug it in.)

By featuring the USB-A ports, Satechi is directly addressing that one concern that people have about wanting at least a few USB-A ports, and that will probably help sell a few docks. Because if I had an M4 Mac mini this hub looks like a nice mix of features, especially if it’s only around $100.