Thunderbolt 3

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Thunderbolt 3 Reviews

Review: OWC ThunderBay 8 Offers High-Volume, High-Performance Mac Storage

Wednesday March 22, 2023 12:58 pm PDT by
With the ThunderBay 8, OWC expands its vast range of professional-grade Thunderbolt accessories, offering an ultra high-capacity storage solution with eight hot-swappable universal bays for 3.5- or 2.5-inch hard drives or SSDs. The ThunderBay 8 can serve as a high-performance personal data center with multiple configuration options to suit ever-growing storage requirements. It can...

Review: Plugable's 2TB Thunderbolt SSD Offers Ultra Fast Transfer Speeds

Friday October 28, 2022 7:46 am PDT by
Plugable offers a wide range of adapters, hubs, and storage solutions for the Mac. The Thunderbolt 3 2TB NVMe Solid State Drive is among the company's more popular performance-focused products, offering a relatively high storage capacity in a small form factor, with ultra fast transfer speeds. The SSD is perfectly suited to recent Mac models with Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 ports,...

Review: Sonnet's Latest eGPU Breakaway Pucks Give Your Intel Mac a Graphics Boost and Extra Connectivity

Friday March 19, 2021 12:09 pm PDT by
Back in January, Sonnet announced updated versions of its eGPU Breakaway Pucks, offering new options equipped with Radeon RX 5500 XT and RX 5700 graphics processors for Intel-based Macs. The docks connect to a host Mac over Thunderbolt 3 and allow for more powerful graphics capabilities than the included graphics in many Macs while also providing some dock capabilities such as additional USB...

Review: CalDigit's USB-C Pro Dock Adds Ports to Your Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C Mac, or Even an iPad Pro

Thursday December 12, 2019 9:12 am PST by
Over the past few years, Thunderbolt 3 docks have become nearly ubiquitous, with a variety of different docks offering varying sets of ports in a few different body styles. Similar docks, albeit with more limited capabilities, exist for connecting over USB-C to machines that lack the more powerful Thunderbolt 3 standard, even in some cases including the iPad Pro. Since the introduction of...

Review: OWC's Updated Thunderbolt 3 Dock Adds 85W Charging, 10 Gbps USB-C Port, and microSD Slot

Wednesday October 10, 2018 2:01 pm PDT by
Nearly a year and half ago, OWC was one of the first companies to launch a Thunderbolt 3 dock, offering over a dozen ports of various types to support a variety of accessories. While I loved the sheer number of the ports offered on the original version of the dock, there were some shortcomings, including a lack of any 10 Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports and only 60 watts of charging power, which may not...

Review: CalDigit's Thunderbolt 3 Mini Docks Let You Connect to Dual 4K Displays Wherever You Go

Friday August 31, 2018 9:45 am PDT by
Last month, CalDigit debuted a pair of Thunderbolt 3 mini Docks, offering the ability to connect dual 4K 60Hz displays, Ethernet, and USB all from one travel-sized accessory that doesn't require its own external power source. Available in dual DisplayPort and dual HDMI versions, CalDigit's Thunderbolt 3 mini Docks are a convenient way to make sure you can easily connect to multiple...

Review: CalDigit's T4 RAID Offers Lots of Fast Storage, Thunderbolt 3, and 85W Charging

Friday June 1, 2018 11:50 am PDT by
Popular storage and dock company CalDigit recently launched a Thunderbolt 3 version of its T4 RAID storage hub, offering demanding Mac users a four-bay setup with capacities up to 32 TB of traditional hard drive or 8 TB of SSD storage. Compatible with Thunderbolt 3 Macs including the MacBook Pro, iMac, and iMac Pro, the T4 connects over a single cable and not only offers a storage array but...

Review: CalDigit's 'TS3 Plus' Dock Gives You 15 Ports, 85W Charging, and an SD Card Reader for $250

Tuesday January 30, 2018 6:25 am PST by
If you've followed all of my Thunderbolt 3 dock reviews over the past year, you know that in general these docks carry a lot of the same features in slightly different combinations. But usually, there's at least one fairly important feature that's missing in each model, whether it be enough USB ports, an SD card reader, or enough power output to fully support a 15-inch MacBook Pro. Price tags...

Review: Promise's $249 TD-300 Thunderbolt 3 Dock Offers Lots of USB Ports and an SD Card Reader

Friday January 26, 2018 10:33 am PST by
Thunderbolt 3 docks continue to hit the market, and today we're taking a look a recent entrant from popular data storage company Promise Technology, the TD-300 Thunderbolt 3 Dock. I've tested quite a few Thunderbolt 3 docks over the past year, and the TD-300 ranks right up with the best I've seen due to standout features like five USB 3.0 ports and an SD 3.0 card reader. At $249, it's also...

Review: Plugable's Flagship TBT3-UDV Thunderbolt 3 Dock Offers Lots of USB Ports at a Reasonable Price

Tuesday September 5, 2017 11:10 am PDT by
I've covered a lot of Thunderbolt 3 docks in recent months, but there's one more upcoming model that's worth taking a look at. The TBT3-UDV is Plugable's upcoming flagship Thunderbolt 3 dock, featuring five USB 3.0 Type-A ports, Gigabit Ethernet, DisplayPort, stereo in/out, and a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports. The dock isn't available for purchase yet, as Plugable is still awaiting Thunderbolt...

Review: IOGEAR's Thunderbolt 3 Dock Does the Job, but Comes Up Short on Charging Power

Tuesday August 29, 2017 1:11 pm PDT by
Thunderbolt 3 docks continue to flood the market, and today I'm taking a look at IOGEAR's Thunderbolt 3 Quantum Docking Station. IOGEAR's dock offers many of the same features typically seen on other Thunderbolt 3 docks, including multiple USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, headphone and microphone jacks, a DisplayPort port, and a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports to allow for daisy chaining, all in a ...

Review: Elgato's $300 Thunderbolt 3 Dock Offers a Solid Set of Ports in a Slim Design

Friday July 21, 2017 12:53 pm PDT by
Over the past few months, I've taken a look at a number of Thunderbolt 3 docks that all hit the market around the same time, including models from OWC, CalDigit, Belkin, and Kensington. There's at least one more major player in the market, so today I'm sharing my thoughts on Elgato's $300 Thunderbolt 3 Dock. Elgato's dock has a lot in common with many of its competitors, including a slim...

Review: Kensington's SD5000T Thunderbolt 3 Dock Packs Some Neat Security and Convenience Features

Friday June 23, 2017 4:57 pm PDT by
Earlier this week, Kensington launched its entry into the Thunderbolt 3 dock market with its SD5000T Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station, an enterprise-focused accessory that incorporates a couple of unique features in the form of a Kensington lock slot and the ability to mount the dock to the rear of VESA-compatible displays for "Zero Footprint Mounting" with a separate bracket accessory. I've...

Review: Belkin's $350 Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD Looks Great, but Could Use More Ports

Friday June 2, 2017 12:44 pm PDT by
With the flood of full-featured Thunderbolt 3 docks about to hit the market, it's time to take a look at Belkin's Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD, one of the major contenders users have been waiting for in addition to the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock and CalDigit TS3 that we've also recently reviewed. As with the other docks we've looked at, Belkin's offering includes a variety of ports and even charging ...

Review: CalDigit's TS3 and TS3 Lite Thunderbolt 3 Docks Offer Solid MacBook Pro Expansion Options

Wednesday May 31, 2017 1:31 pm PDT by
While Apple's latest MacBook Pro with support for Thunderbolt 3 has been out for over six months, the first full-featured Thunderbolt 3 docks are only just now starting to hit the market. Last month we took a look at OWC's Thunderbolt 3 Dock that should begin shipping out very shortly, and today we're taking a look at a pair of similar docks from CalDigit that help expand the capabilities of the...

Review: OWC's Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gives Your MacBook Pro 13 More Ports to Work With

Friday April 28, 2017 5:23 pm PDT by
Last November, longtime Mac vendor OWC was among the first wave of companies to announce Thunderbolt 3 docks designed to expand the capabilities of the new MacBook Pro. It's taken a while to finalize the product design, testing, and manufacturing, but OWC's Thunderbolt 3 Dock is now just about ready to ship and we've had a chance to spend some time with a production-ready unit. Priced at...

Thunderbolt 3 Articles