Bill D.
Reliable, well-made, no-drama, budget-friendly hub that just works with MacBook Air and Win 11 PCs.
Unless you are willing to pay 5x-10x the price for more speed and less reliability, this is the hub you want. I've used it with both types of computers, and it was simple to setup. It was also simple to use. I just had to format the SSD I installed in it to match the computer and then point my backup software or Time Machine at the new drive. Now, I backup every night with zero effort. The transfer speed is limited to 10Mbps due to the USB C 3.2 spec., so it isn't a barn burner. For most normal sized file copies, it's a difference of a second or two. I only see a big difference when I'm copying multiple terabytes of data. However, the reliability is worth the tradeoff. My fastest hub is 40Mbps, cost $400 and it took days to get it working because it was picky about the cable being used, the CPU/RAM speed, and the drive mounted in it. Once that expensive hub was finally working, it still seems a little flaky, occasionally requiring a reboot to see the drive after the computer enters low power hibernate mode. This was SO MUCH EASIER. Since my backups run overnight, the speed doesn't really matter for those. This hub has the M.2 NVMe SSD slot inside with the three common sizes of SSDs able to fit in it. It also has a 1Gbps ethernet port, an HDMI 2.0 port for 4K60 display, an extra USB C port and a couple USB 3 ports + 1 USB 2 port. There is also a short (~6"?) USB C cable permanently attached for plugging the dock into your machine (this one does 90W power/charging, which is great for MacBook Air, and newer iPads, or iPhones with USB C). It's nice when you only have one or two USB C ports on your computer. You get a LOT of functionality out of a single USB C port. The price for this is frankly dirt cheap for such a well-made, reliable, easy-to-use hub with so many features on it. I highly recommend it. Unless you have really high end PC/Mac hardware, and plan to copy multiple terabytes several times per day, or need multiple monitor connections, then paying $400-600 for a much faster hub, plus another $100 for the best cable you can find, just isn't worth the extra hassle that you trade for that speed. If you're using a $6,000 graphics card in a $6,000 top-of-the-line PC and do heavy 8K video editing, work with gigantic CAD/CAM models, or do major computer game development, or are a professional competitive gamer, then you can justify the extra. The vast majority of us will have a better experience installing, setting up, and just using this dock every day, because it works. My advice? Just buy it. It's pure quality without a quality price.Ver másVer menos
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