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Review: Elgato’s Thunderbolt 2 Dock is a faster, one-cable hub for all your Mac peripherals

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As “really good Mac accessory ideas” go, Thunderbolt docks are high on the list. It’s hard to overstate the sheer convenience of connecting a bunch of peripherals to a central hub, then running one Thunderbolt cable from the hub to your Mac — a huge time-saver if you’re frequently bringing any Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook in and out of an office full of hardware.

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Earlier this year, Elgato’s original Thunderbolt Dock brought that convenience to Macs with first-generation Thunderbolt Ports. For the same $230 price, the just-released Thunderbolt 2 Dock ramps up the speed using twin Thunderbolt 2 connectors, and also boosts the performance of integrated USB 3.0, HDMI video, and analog audio-out ports. The under-the-hood changes make it a solid pick regardless of whether you have a newer Mac with Thunderbolt 2, and even if you’re using an older Mac with Thunderbolt.

Just like the first Thunderbolt Dock, the Thunderbolt 2 Dock has a silver aluminum frame with a black plastic core, drawing most of its power from an included wall power adapter, and connecting to your Mac with a bundled 1.6-foot Thunderbolt cable. The two models look highly similar to one another, but the newer version’s front and rear ports are in trivially different orders. Elgato includes three USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, a 3.5mm microphone input port, a USB-to-analog 3.5mm audio out port, a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port and an HDMI port. Apart from the tweaked arrangement of the ports, which continue to let you connect up to eight accessories to your Mac at the same time, the connectors look the same as before, hiding their new functionality inside.

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This time out, the Dock’s USB 3.0 ports include standalone 1.5-Amp power output with USB Battery Charging 1.2/UASP standard compliance, enabling them to recharge iPads and iPhones at higher speeds even when a Mac isn’t connected. Similarly, Elgato uses the Thunderbolt connection to share digital USB audio output from your Mac, providing a powered amplifier for the 3.5mm stereo audio port; the mic input next to it is monaural. Another major change is the HDMI port, which now supports the HDMI 1.4b standard and 4096×2160 resolution output, if you’re planning to connect your Mac to a 4K monitor. Not surprisingly, your Mac will still need enough video card horsepower to drive all those pixels.

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Elgato has also upgraded the Thunderbolt ports on the Thunderbolt 2 Dock. The Thunderbolt 2 ports both promise up to 20Gb/second, bi-directional input and output, though you’ll notably need one of the ports to connect to your Mac, leaving the other one for a hard drive, monitor, or other Thunderbolt/Thunderbolt 2 peripheral. Practically, the speeds that you get between the Mac and the Thunderbolt 2 Dock will depend on how many devices are competing for bandwidth with the single outbound connection, and you may or may not achieve full Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 speeds. Elgato’s own Thunderbolt Drive+ ran at full 373MB/second read speeds when connected to the Dock or a Mac, but write speeds fell for reasons unknown from 328MB/sec to 287MB/sec.

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Some of this might be software-dependent. Elgato offers a free Thunderbolt Dock Utility to enable simultaneous all-device ejection from your Mac, full-speed USB 3.0 support, and proper iPad charging on the Mac. It’s currently at version 1.1, and we didn’t notice any speed differences between versions 1.0 and 1.1 when using the Utility with the Thunderbolt 2 Dock. We’ll see whether a future version boosts the throughput speeds.

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Conceptually, the Thunderbolt 2 Dock overlaps a lot with Belkin’s Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD, which offers similar ports, features, and speeds for a higher $300 price. Belkin’s bundled Thunderbolt cable is a little longer, and it has two audio outputs — one for speakers, one for headphones — rather than an output and a mic, but the USB, 4K HDMI, and audio port enhancements in Elgato’s version make it at least equally strong as a rival, at a $70 lower price. If you want to enjoy the convenience of a single-cable connection between multiple peripherals and your Mac, the Thunderbolt 2 Dock is very easy to recommend.

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Comments

  1. digitalhoax - 9 years ago

    So can you connect two displays at the same time, one via thunderbolt, one via hdmi? I remember this lacking in some docks, which always kept me from getting one.

    • Jeremy Horwitz - 9 years ago

      Right, though the conditions depend on your computer and monitor(s). Some machines can do two monitors, some one. See http://help.elgato.com/customer/portal/articles/1491132-how-many-displays-can-be-used-with-elgato-thunderbolt™-dock- for more details.

      • digitalhoax - 9 years ago

        The situation is rather bad, especially this:
        “When using a Mac, you can’t connect an HDMI monitor and DisplayPort monitor to Elgato Thunderbolt™ Dock at the same time. The HDMI monitor will take precedence, and the DisplayPort monitor won’t work.”
        I had looked this up when the first version came out and were wondering whether anything has changed since. Since I am not going to replace any of my displays with thunderbolt displays, I am stuck to shoving in to mini displayports for my screen set up. Too bad, seems a technical limitation of the one thunderbolt connection to the dock rather than a design flaw.

    • Fred Ling - 9 years ago

      I just bought this dock, but unfortunately, it is not working with two monitors. I have one Apple Thunderbolt display and one HDMI display. So far I am only able to get one of them working, but not both at the same time. Opened a ticket with Elgato, so solutions yet.

  2. ikir - 9 years ago

    Awesome dock

  3. wfiveash - 9 years ago

    Umm, Firewire?

  4. Dave Park - 9 years ago

    I have this exact dock, got it a few days ago. The USB on mine is temperamental – hard drives won’t show up at all. Also,m the audio ports do not show up. I opened a ticket and elgato are swapping my unit out. I must comment that their support seems highly competent and helpful – they treated me like an adult throughout. That’s quite rare these days. The measure of a company isn’t in when things are fine – it’s in when things go wrong and elgato gets two thumbs up form me for their responses.

    • mochachaiguy - 9 years ago

      I am on my second Elgato dock. The first one stopped mounting any USB drives within the first few hours of use. I took that bact to the store for a refund as they didn’t have any other options in stock. The second disk is better, but still giving me problems with intermittent lockups copying files across two drives connected to the unit.
      I’m excited by the inclusion of TB2, but not sure I would buy another from Elgato.

  5. iosser - 9 years ago

    Good idea, but it is wrong to say “all” your mac peripherals, as it does not have optical out audio, and the USB 3.0 power rating, at 1.5A is higher than basic 500ma, but not the full 2.1A from a MBP or many chargers. Both these things affect me, so I have stuck my cable plugs together with Sugru, which makes it neat and tidy to plug in all at the same time.Admittedly, I keep the audio plug separate because sometimes I unplug it separately.

  6. Udi Naor - 9 years ago

    hi
    i have a 2011 mbp with a thunderbolt and usb2 ports
    i love this dock idea for the usb3 etc.
    but im wondering, since my mbp dosnt have thunderbolt2, should i still buy the thunderbolt 2 dock or the prior one…
    any recommendation?

  7. Sandes Samararatne - 8 years ago

    What if I were to connect two displays via mini-display port to display port adapters?