On my channel I have been covering Thunderbolt docks and hubs for quite a while and while
I use them and recommend them, I know many of you have questions about them.
So, in this video I want to answer some of the common questions I get about Thunderbolt
docks and macs, which may help you decide if you should get one.
Also, as a bonus, I’ll give you my recommendation for the absolute best thunderbolt dock.
First off, you might be asking yourself if you even need a dock.
And the answer is completely up to you and your needs.
A dock is, in essence, a device for your computer that expands the connectivity options.
When we look at Macs on the market today you can find computers with a severely limited
number of ports like on the M1 MacBook Air all the way to the 11 ports or so on the Mac
Studio.
Then there is the iMac or MacBook Pro with a number of ports somewhere in the middle.
No matter which mac you have, if you find yourself needing additional USB ports for
external drives and accessories, or a card reader for camera gear, or extra audio options,
or ethernet for more reliable internet, then a Dock may be just what you need.
Personally, I use a dock on my desktop for my MacBook Pro and connect almost everything
I need to it, including my external displays, SSDs, and Ethernet.
I also use the SD card slot on this Caldigit TS4 along with the SD reader on my MacBook
because I pull data off of multiple cards at the same time, Plus the one on the dock
is faster!
Using a Dock gives me the ability to quickly disconnect all the external devices connected
to my Mac and go mobile while also giving me the simple one-cable solution for docking
when I get back to my desk.
There are many dock options out there for thunderbolt 3, thunderbolt 4, different port
options, or even ones that come with internal connectors for SSDs.
Once you decide what types of additional ports you need and how many, you have plenty of
docks to decide from and I'll leave a link below to a video I did recently, comparing
3.
Now, I do want to talk about docks vs hubs, thunderbolt 3, 4, usb-c, charging and more
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Ok, so you've seen docks and you've seen hubs and what's the difference?
Well, the truth is the line is pretty blurred these days.
While both docks and hubs can offer you additional port options, in general, hubs are smaller
devices with fewer port options.
Most hubs are unpowered which means they do not have their own power brick but some can
pass power through them if you connect your laptop charger to the hub and the hub to the
laptop.
I find hubs to be better suited for my laptop bag so when I am working from another office
I can connect external devices like a conference room projector.
Docks, on the other hand, are usually larger, with additional ports, and are powered which
make them better suited for a regular desk setup, and can power a laptop with up to 98
watts of juice.
For connection options to your hub or dock you will see Thunderbolt 3, thunderbolt 4,
and USB-c typically.
Now, this whole thing can be a bit confusing because there are many different versions
of USB, and thunderbolt 3 and 4 have the same connector type as USB because they all use
this same type-c connection.
To make it really simple, USB-C is generally up to 10gbps, whereas Thunderbolt 3 and 4
are up to 40gbps.
There are some other specs for USB that can get up to 20gbps and USB-4 can get up to 40gbps.
You will want to check the specs of your computer and match the dock connection to what your
computer can support or go with a Thunderbolt 4 dock which will be the most compatible with
all devices because it can also handle all the USB specs as well.
Now, I get a lot of questions around using docks and charging when other devices are
in the mix so let me clear up a few things.
First, if you are using a dock with your macbook and you find that maybe the power adapter
that came with your computer charges faster, you can connect both to the computer without
issue.
Your computer will not get power from both devices at the same time and your computer
is pretty smart about it.
Your computer actually negotiates with devices for power so when you connect a USB charger
or dock to your laptop, the device will not just start sending power.
The computer will say “hey, how much power can you give me” and once it knows it will
start pulling the amount of power it needs.
Also, when you connect 2 devices to a macbook that can provide power, the Macbook will look
at which one provides more power and only pull from that.
That means if you have a dock that provides 60w of power and you also have magsafe that
does 67 or 140watts, the computer will only pull power from the higher powered charger.
Same goes for a display that uses power delivery.
The Second power related question I get is for desktop Macs.
If you are connecting a dock to a desktop mac like the iMac or Mac Mini, the computer
will only pull power from its own power source.
Third, just like the computer only pulling what power it wants, If you connect a display
that has power delivery to a dock, the display will not send power to the dock so there are
no worries there.
I think that is it for power related questions but if you have any others let me know below.
Next up, Displays, and I get a lot of questions about displays.
The number of displays you can connect to a dock and use comes down to 2 things.
How many displays does the dock support, and how many displays does the Mac support.
But also, there is one other thing I’ll mention in a minute.
Most docks and many hubs will come with one or 2 display output options.
That might be in the form of a displayport or hdmi connection or even displayport over
USB-C or thunderbolt.
The display resolution and refresh rates may differ so check the dock-umentation to verify
it will work with your displays.
For the Mac, most intel macs will allow 2 displays connected to a thunderbolt dock.
The baseline M1 and M2 chips like in the MacBook Air, will only allow a single external display,
except the Mac Mini which can do one display with hdmi and one over usbc or thunderbolt.
The Pro and Max chips can do 2 or 4 external displays, respectively, on macbooks, or up
to 5 displays on a Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra.
The Pro and Max chips will only allow you to connect 2 displays through a dock, though.
Now the curveball here is docks with Displaylink.
DisplayLink is a hardware chip inside some docks that lets you use additional monitors
even if your computer does not support it.
It works by installing a driver on your mac and then it creates virtual displays
That can be sent through a dock to a monitor.
I have not used these in over 10 years so I don't have any recommendations on docks
with Displaylink, however, the performance of displaylink displays may be reduced compared
to a native display because your computer has to emulate the graphics ability using
the regular processor.
If you have any recommendations on docks with displaylink drop it in the comments below.
The next question I get frequently is about daisy chaining docks.
If you are someone who needs a massive amount of I/O ports you can daisy chain docks together
and keep the one-cable solution.
In My opinion, if you need that many ports you probably want to use another port on the
mac for the second dock because a single port will get up to 40gbps.
Once you connect IO heavy devices like displays or ssds you can start hitting
the 40gb limit.
If you connect a second dock to a second port on the Mac, each dock will get a full 40gb
of bandwidth.
OK, so that covers the most common questions I get about docks and now for my recommendation
of the best thunderbolt dock……And surprise!
It's the caldigit TS4.
This dock has everything I need in a dock with the right amount of ports, a clean design,
a rear facing host port, 2.5gb ethernet, and front fast charging ports for other devices.
This is not a cheap dock but it is usually on sale so check out the link in the description,
and like I said each person will have their own needs so maybe the caldigit ts3 plus is
perfect for you for the Optical audio port, or maybe even a hub for just a couple of usb
ports.
Whatever you need, you can probably find.
And if you are looking at thunderbolt 4 docks I just compared 3 recently so check out this
video right over here.
Hit the thumbs up button if you like it, hit subscribe if you want and I'll see you next
time.