[HN Gopher] Will that hub or dock slow your SSDs, or even make t...
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Will that hub or dock slow your SSDs, or even make them faster?
Author : zdw
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-12-23 14:45 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co)
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I bought a dock for my Mac mini. It works great, but I do notice
| that it takes a few seconds/minutes after waking up before the
| NVMe SSD is mounted, which means I can't keep any of my dotfiles
| on it.
| shae wrote:
| CalDigit TS4 is the best dock I've used. I tried several. I get
| 2.5 GB Ethernet, two external 4k monitors, and much throughput.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| I like my Kensington a lot, don't seem them mentioned a lot but
| the build quality is very high, lots of ports and it even has
| an official mount for under-desk use
| codetrotter wrote:
| What's the model name?
| shwouchk wrote:
| I recently got this one (see sibling comment to parent) and
| am quite happy with it:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CMT7WMVM
|
| Note that as all docks it requires displaylink software on
| mac to use more than one screen, and the software is a bit
| buggy - needs to be restarted every couple of times i
| reconnect to the dock for the displays to work right. TBH
| this is the first dock i experience this with but then
| again os and software updates, and ive seen weird flaky
| behavior before, just not specifically this.
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| Not all docks need DisplayLink. Thunderbolt-powered ones
| like this [0] or this [1] can support multiple displays
| for Macbook Pros without it, so if you want to avoid
| having to use DisplayLink, they're solid picks. The one
| thing you need to watch out for is that if you go with
| the second one, there are no HDMI ports, so you need a
| USB-C to HDMI converter, which in my experience can be
| flaky at higher refresh rates. If on the other hand your
| monitors support DisplayPort, then USB-C to DisplayPort
| is native, doesn't need a converter (just an adapter),
| and works better.
|
| 1: https://plugable.com/products/tbt4-ud5
|
| 2: https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
| fragmede wrote:
| From the first link
|
| > On Mac systems, dual display is only supported on M1
| Pro/Max, M2 Pro/Max, M3 Pro/Max, and M4/Pro/Max systems
|
| So if you're still on an OG M1 it won't work for you.
| wtallis wrote:
| Base M2 or M3 won't work either; a Thunderbolt dock
| cannot work around a lack of display pipes on the SoC.
| The M4 is the first base M-series chip that supports two
| external displays in addition to the internal display,
| hence the slightly different phrasing in your quote for
| the M4 generation.
| shwouchk wrote:
| Aside from my justified negative opinions about caldigit,
| i was referring to docks that offer 3+ (simultaneous)
| screen outputs (eg not one with 2 hdmi+2dp that can use
| either set but not all 4 together).
|
| That requires DP.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| SD5700T
| codetrotter wrote:
| Thank you
| kalleboo wrote:
| Just watch out for the TS3 dock, a few of the USB ports on it
| are driven by a flaky chipset and should be avoided
| https://sebvance.medium.com/the-secret-caveats-of-the-caldig...
| simoncion wrote:
| > 2. Don't expect to run any USB hubs behind any of the USB
| ports on this dock whatsoever... even if the downstream hub
| is only powering wimpy devices like wireless mouse dongles.
| You might not have this problem if you plug the hub into the
| dock's extra Thunderbolt port...
|
| I have this device and don't have this problem? I have a
| couple of self-powered hubs downstream of this thing and have
| plugged them into the USB-A-shaped ports on the back.
|
| I don't have any downstream Thunderbolt devices plugged into
| this thing. Maybe that's the major difference between my
| setup and the author's? (Or maybe I'm running better firmware
| on this thing than he is?)
| kalleboo wrote:
| I haven't tried any hubs, but my problem was using a 2.5
| Gbps USB Ethernet controller off of one of the Fresco Logic
| USB ports (the front 5 Gbps ones or the rear right-hand 3
| USB-A ports), after a few hours it would drop. I thought
| the cheap USB adapter was bad, replaced it, same thing.
|
| I found this blog post, switched to one of the ASMedia
| ports (the rear 10 Gbps USB-C port or the most left-hand
| USB-A port) and both of the Ethernet controllers are rock-
| solid now.
|
| I now have it in the Thunderbolt port which ekes out
| another 100 Mbps or so compared to the ASMedia USB ports.
|
| The blog post is probably a bit sensationalistic but I
| still can't recommend the dock to anyone when half the
| ports on it are flakey, especially at that price.
| shwouchk wrote:
| PSA: STAY AWAY!
|
| I had two expensive caldigit docks (TS3 i believe). One was
| warranty replacement for the first one. Each died after about a
| year.
|
| After that I had an expensive alogic dock. Seemed great when it
| was working, but after just over a year it went dead (warranty
| is for two years).
|
| The dock i had is out of stock. After weeks of "checking" I was
| offered an exchange for a cheaper version (whatever) that
| doesn't include features i rely on (3 screens).
|
| As "compensation" I was offered about 30% of the original
| price, since "the item was used".
|
| Thanks but no thanks. Standard amortization time for computer
| equipment is 5 years. And in either case, who has patience to
| go for weeks without their familiar computing environment? And
| my cost is replacement of the item, i did not rent it.
|
| I got a Kensington dock sold by amazon at slightly less than
| the original price of that one, with better features and a
| brand name that is worth more than the piece of paper it is
| written on.
|
| We'll see how it lasts
| simoncion wrote:
| $DAYJOB issues us Mac laptops. (Seems like a waste of money,
| but it's not MY money.)
|
| So, I've been using a CalDigit TS3 Plus device for the last
| two or three years. I have USB 3, Ethernet, and DisplayPort
| going out from it, and a Thunderbolt cable going into it.
| Other than sometimes having to unplug and replug the
| DisplayPort cable to get the screen to wake [0], it works
| fine.
|
| [0] To make this easy, I have an F<->F coupler near the
| display that doesn't have latches. I just slip out one end of
| the cable from the coupler and slip it back in. Quick and
| easy, if slightly annoying that I have to do it at all.
| phantompeace wrote:
| Off topic but why refer to it as $DAYJOB (is it really a
| variable like that?) rather than just saying "work" or "my
| job"? I see it all over HN but I've actually never
| understood why people do this. Sorry for veering off topic.
| orta wrote:
| The syntax is written like a bash shell variable, the
| idea (I assume) is that the actual job itself doesn't
| matter but the idea of it being something they do for
| work does (because contextually it means they have less
| decision power.) So, if it were me, saying I work for
| Puzzmo is about as useful as me saying I work for $DAYJOB
| in a sentence like that.
| pjerem wrote:
| Also it's just some HN slang. No more, no less.
| wging wrote:
| Way more, actually. It likely predates HN by decades.
| shwouchk wrote:
| Yep that was my exact story too, before the first sock gave
| out shortly before warranty, was replaced (at least
| regarding customer service im happy), and then same exact
| story with the second one.
|
| Given that i had a third unrelated dock fail recently it
| wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect something on my end
| might be causing this, but then again that's the only
| hardware that failed on me in a while and i don't do
| anything that unusual besides having 3x4k screens plugged
| into it and the occasional mouse charging/flash drive
| drawing power off it.
|
| In all cases the PSU of the dock died with it (but also the
| docks themselves) so i suspect current DL chipsets overheat
| and eventually burn out when pushing clost to their max
| resolution.
| radley wrote:
| I'm using a CalDigit TB4. It's two years old and no issues.
|
| I don't push it too often, but when I do, it's fast enough to
| play six or more concurrent 1080p video layers in Resolume
| from a single Gen4x4 NVMe. It's not as fast as my M1's
| internal storage, but it does the job.
|
| https://resolume.com/
| cced wrote:
| I've been using the TS3+ for many, many years now. Not a
| single issue.
| begueradj wrote:
| What about no dock and no 3 external monitors ?
| jsheard wrote:
| It would be a lot simpler if you could just install NVMe drives
| internally, wired directly to the CPUs PCIe bus with nothing
| inbetween to slow it down, but alas if Apple let you do that it
| would cut into their business of selling internal SSD upgrades at
| a 500% markup.
| sureIy wrote:
| > SSD upgrades at a 500% markup.
|
| Is the price difference really that high or are you comparing
| them to cheaper SSDs?
| jsheard wrote:
| It's absolutely that high. Upgrading a Mac Mini from 256GB to
| 2TB is an extra $800, and a high-end 2TB NVMe drive like the
| WD SN850x is around $150 at retail. Even the 8TB version of
| that drive is only $650.
|
| That's why external SSDs are so common in Mac setups, even
| accounting for the additional cost of a Thunderbolt enclosure
| it's usually still significantly cheaper than getting a
| bigger internal SSD from Apple.
| Retric wrote:
| Using a gaming part is a poor comparison because gaming
| parts get higher speeds at lower prices by sacrificing
| longevity/energy efficiency. Clearly not the tradeoff Apple
| wants to make here.
|
| Which isn't anything against the SN850x, it's a great fit
| for the intended use case it's just many people assume
| there's zero trade-offs involved beyond
| speed/price/capacity.
|
| Apple is definitely raising storage prices to milk their
| customers and promote their iCloud cash cow, but it's still
| worth considering when looking at 'gaming' parts in
| different situations.
| rudedogg wrote:
| A Samsung 990 Pro dips to the same prices. I got a 2TB
| one for $150 this Black Friday.
|
| Apple is overcharging for storage. You get a lot of
| compute for cheap though :/
| Retric wrote:
| A perfectly reasonable comparison and I agree with your
| point.
| kayson wrote:
| Is it clear? Apple doesn't publish endurance specs for
| their drives so there's actually no way to tell. 600x
| full drive writes (what the 2TB SN850X is specced for) is
| probably enough for the vast majority of users to never
| have to worry about it. You can even get enterprise SSDs,
| which are rated in whole drive writes per day for less
| than that.
| wtallis wrote:
| It's a fair comparison. Both Apple's computers and drives
| like the WD SN850x are using commodity SSD-grade TLC
| flash; there's no significant difference in quality,
| performance, efficiency, or durability in the flash
| itself. It's possible (maybe even _likely_ ) that a Mac
| with 2TB of built-in storage is using _literally the
| same_ NAND flash dies that show up in a SN850x.
|
| SSD performance and power efficiency are significantly
| affected by the choice of controller. Apple's Macs have
| the controller built-in to the SoC, so it's a sunk cost
| that doesn't really factor in to upgrade pricing.
| Retric wrote:
| I said poor not unfair. They might happen to end up with
| equal price per flash chip, but either could end up being
| more expensive it's just not a good yardstick IMO.
|
| Anyway, what you might consider insignificant differences
| are things companies do consider these worth paying for.
| You not caring isn't the same thing as nobody caring.
|
| > significantly affected by the choice of controller
|
| Aka it _is_ more complicated than just slapping different
| controller on the same chips and calling it a day.
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| The SN850x isn't a "gaming part", it's a top-of-the-line
| consumer SSD that uses the exact same type of NAND chips
| (3D TLC) that Apple uses in its products.
| LukeShu wrote:
| Western Digital themselves are literally calling the
| WD_BLACK line their gaming line[1], and their page for
| the SN850X in particular is dripping with "gaming"[2].
|
| Maybe that doesn't make it a bad comparison, but the
| SN850X is def intended to be a gaming part.
|
| [1]: https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd-black
|
| [2]: https://www.westerndigital.com/en-
| in/products/internal-drive...
| vlovich123 wrote:
| What is a competing part that you think would be more
| comparable?
|
| Gamers are the ones buying expensive parts so it makes
| sense to market to that. The next tier after this is
| basically server-class 10-20k machines which Apple is
| definitely not competing with (and SSDs are not really
| that much better in that class anyway). Dismissing SSDs
| as "gaming" parts as if it's diminishing the quality
| misunderstands what's happening here. It would be one
| thing if WD was ignoring fsyncs to achieve this
| performance but gamers don't care about writes so much
| anyway and there's no indication WD did that.
|
| Source: I have the WD and Samsung parts as well as cheapo
| random SSDs.
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| The other product lines would be WD Blues (marketed at
| "creative professionals working with large files") and WD
| Reds (marketed specifically for use in NAS's), but
| neither of these really support the argument that the
| SN850x isn't a good comparison, because both the Blue and
| Red lines are cheaper and less performant (and the Blues
| are even rated for less longevity), and just make it seem
| like Apple is price gouging even more.
|
| The point I was trying to make by pointing out that the
| SN850x isn't a "gaming part" is that the SN850x is
| literally the top-of-the-line, most expensive consumer
| SSD sold by WD, and has practically the same specs as
| other top-of-the-line, most expensive competing parts
| like the Samsung 990 Pro. Being one of the most expensive
| SSDs on the market means that saying that the SN850x is a
| bad comparison because it's supposedly "lower price" is
| just false on its face.
| Retric wrote:
| Ahh you misunderstood what the lower prices is in
| reference to. Gaming parts often have a real premium,
| it's specifically the price _at a specific performance
| level_ where they preform well.
|
| To be more clear, getting equal performance without
| sacrificing anything would raise costs even further.
| Retric wrote:
| I personally don't think anything is a great comparison.
|
| It's easy to say moderate premium over normal business
| grade SSD's but that doesn't mean any specific number is
| correct. I'd say the equivalent to a 130$ to 220$ SSD
| assuming a stand alone equivalent exited, but the actual
| number depending on info Apple isn't sharing. And yes the
| range is both above and below the specific part
| suggested.
| Retric wrote:
| There's a lot of diversity under that "3D TLC" umbrella.
|
| But anyway, in what world isn't this a gaming product:
| https://shop.sandisk.com/products/ssd/internal-ssd/wd-
| black-...
|
| "Built for elite gaming.
|
| Crush load times and slash throttling, lagging, and
| texture pop-ins with the WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe(tm) SSD.
| ...
|
| Do more with WD_BLACK Dashboard The downloadable WD_BLACK
| Dashboard (Windows(r) only) monitors your drive's health,
| lets you customize your RGB lighting, and, exclusively on
| the SN850X SSD, enables Game Mode 2.0 to transform your
| gaming experience."
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| > There's a lot of diversity under that "3D TLC"
| umbrella.
|
| There really isn't. Apple is reported to use SanDisk 3D
| TLC NAND chips. SanDisk is owned by Western Digital, and
| the WD SSDs use SanDisk chips. They're literally the same
| chips.
| Retric wrote:
| They could in theory come off the same assembly line,
| that doesn't mean the everything is identical.
|
| Hell WD chips could be of higher quality as I am not
| suggesting I know their internal processes. I am saying
| things are optimized differently.
| pdpi wrote:
| > They could in theory come off the same assembly line,
| that doesn't mean the everything is identical.
|
| It could just come down to different binning of the same
| part, and it would still make a difference.
| izacus wrote:
| At this point of the conversation, you seem to be really
| grasping for theoretical stuff to defent Apple's margins
| with very little proof. Why?
| Retric wrote:
| I've said several times they could be using _worse_
| components.
|
| The why I'm still talking is because people seem to think
| buying a gaming SSD is a good idea when they also want
| longevity / low risk of future. The parts _can_ last 10+
| years but they're designed with something else in mind.
| wtallis wrote:
| There really isn't much diversity in NAND flash product
| lines. Each generation of 3D NAND from WD+Kioxia
| basically consists of two sizes of TLC die and one or two
| sizes of QLC die. For the purposes of this conversation,
| binning doesn't matter because "SSD grade" is already the
| top bin. So the only variable on the NAND side for a
| high-end 2TB drive is the question of whether it's built
| with the high-capacity die (cheaper per GB), or twice as
| many of the low-capacity dies (potentially faster if it
| allows more controller channels to be fully populated,
| but that's usually not a problem at 2TB).
| Retric wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by SSD grade, Grade A to D
| chips aren't strictly about binning but also
| traceability/fraud.
|
| One hardware guy mentioned internal defects can cause
| differences is the amount of reserve sectors that a final
| product ends up with. That's exactly the kind of
| arbitrary cutoff that lets companies charge different
| prices for the same part.
| wtallis wrote:
| SSD-grade is the term used for flash with a low initial
| defect rate. See eg. https://www.szyunze.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/08/SpecTek-N... (from
| https://www.szyunze.com/spectek-unveiling-truths-about-
| degra... )
|
| Lower-grade flash with higher initial defect rates is
| what gets used in USB flash drives and SD cards, and some
| bargain-bin SSDs with lower usable capacities (ie. 960GB
| rather than 1TB).
|
| The stuff used in a WD Black or WD Blue branded consumer
| SSD is not a different quality grade from the stuff used
| in any other mainstream consumer SSD, Apple's included.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > They're literally the same chips.
|
| At what grade? Plus, how much extra endurance is baked in
| to Apple's drives, i.e. how over-provisioned are they?
|
| My MacBook Air M1 reports 99% health after being daily
| driven (and some 26TB written to it) at work since 2020
| (we got these as soon as they introduced), and I don't
| baby its drive in any way.
| dazed_confused wrote:
| Any decent consumer SSD will be exactly the same, brands
| such as SK Hynix, Samsung, Crucial, WD, etc. same chips
| and same performance, much cheaper than the Apple tax.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >Built for elite gaming //
|
| That's just marketing language for "this is expensive af
| but you'll buy it because otherwise you're not an elite
| gamer!".
| lazide wrote:
| Also 'has RGB LED's all over it'
| Retric wrote:
| At one point that was true, but product lines have
| started to meaningfully diverge.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| Is something like the Crucial T705 or Samsung 990 or also
| "gaming" parts?
|
| Their manufacturers provide 5 years warranties unlike
| Apple. AFAIK Apple doesn't even disclose endurance
| ratings. Wouldn't you expect the opposite?
| nickjj wrote:
| > Their manufacturers provide 5 years warranties
|
| Yep and it's possible to get much more out of it.
|
| I've been running a Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD for 10
| years. It's at 63% health from a S.M.A.R.T. readout. It's
| been powered on 125 times over ~10 years and transferred
| 56 TB in that time. It's my main Windows partition and
| runs WSL 2 where I've built and ran thousands of Docker
| images. Basically, it hasn't been sitting here unused.
| Retric wrote:
| 0.5% is a meaningful difference in defect rates, but
| simply isn't meaningful on an individual scale.
| Retric wrote:
| Samsung 990 is marketed as a PRO part and a reasonable
| comparison, hell it's likely a better product than what
| Apple is shipping. But when a company slaps gaming 30
| times on the product page, lists specific features to
| minimize load times etc it's clearly targeting a specific
| demographic who in general wants different tradeoffs.
|
| At scale failures are more than just endurance ratings.
| Gaming laptops for example often cook their components
| due to prioritizing performance over long term stability.
| That doesn't guarantee early failure, but it reduces the
| likelihood the system is working in 4 years.
| fweimer wrote:
| Surely the WD SN850x isn't high end? It doesn't even have
| power-loss protection as far as I can see. SSDs with
| protection are much more expensive.
|
| (Not sure if Apple SSDs have power-loss protection. Not
| using sockets probably eliminates one source of accidental
| power loss.)
| yread wrote:
| There are also a lot cheaper ssds (nv2 or p3 are under
| 100 eur for 2tb often)
| wtallis wrote:
| The SN850x is high-end for client/consumer SSDs. The ones
| you're referring to that have full power loss protection
| are enterprise SSDs, which is an entirely different
| market segment with different performance targets,
| different endurance rating methodology, and different
| expected feature set. Enterprise SSDs are not the right
| thing to compare Mac storage against.
| dustyventure wrote:
| Still, it's confusing to use WD as an example of high
| end. They have dramless which is like the winmodem of
| SSDs, and even in this case no encryption. Clearly they
| are a budget manufacturer that happened to have something
| that worked out for some people.
|
| Samsung is a much better example of a manufacturer that
| Apple would be emulating, investing in their own
| controllers, etc, and certainly not leaving out security
| features with no plan.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| When I bought my "cheesegrater" Mac Pro, I wanted 8TB of
| SSD. Except Apple wanted $3,000 for 7TB of SSD
| (considering the sticker price came with a baseline of
| 1TB).
|
| I bought a 4xM.2 card and 4x2TB Samsung Pro SSDs, cost me
| $1,300, I got to keep the 1TB "system" SSD, and was
| faster, at 6.8GBps versus the system drive at 5.5.
|
| Similar with memory. OWC literally sells the same memory
| as Apple (same manufacturer, same specifications. Apple
| also wanted $3,000 for 160GB of memory (going from 32 to
| 192). I paid $1,000.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| There are different ways to implement power-loss
| protection. There was a Twitter thread where a guy tested
| actual power-loss protection but it doesn't load anymore,
| too bad he didn't blog about it...
|
| But at least the tech press wrote a bit about it, for
| example here[1], including a link on how Samsung
| implements it using journaling on consumer SSDs. I would
| expect WD to do something similar given that multiple WD
| drives passed the test.
|
| [1]: https://hothardware.com/news/heads-up-nvme-ssds-
| lose-data-po...
| edgineer wrote:
| M4 Pro 512GB --> 2TB cost: $600
|
| M4 Pro read/write: ~5.4/6.7 GB/s
|
| Samsung 990 Pro 2TB: $170
|
| 990 Pro R/W: ~7.1/6.2 GB/s
|
| Samsung 990 Evo 2TB: $130
|
| 990 Evo R/W: ~4.8/3.9 GB/s
|
| Sorry no links, looked at tomshardware, Amazon, and macrumors
| forums for numbers.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Samsung has an 8TB and 4TB model as well. The 8TB is 509
| euros in Germany (inc VAT). The 4 TB one is 233 euro.
|
| I have an older 2TB one. USB 3.2. Plenty of speed for
| putting lots of media, large software packages (e.g. Xplane
| 12 with a lot of scenery) etc.
| jchw wrote:
| AFAIK the NAND they use on Mac products is not really
| particularly special, they seem to shift between a lot of
| different chips (often Kioxia/Toshiba) and many of them seem
| at best to be middle of the road. A lot of industrious folks
| were just buying the chips directly and performing SSD
| upgrades the very hard way, since it was simply worth the
| savings if you could.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| Apple is selling 256 GB for $200
|
| So it's probably even considerable more than 500%.
|
| Unless you believe that Apple only buys "magic" components
| like the 8GB=16GB crowd there is nothing particularly special
| about their storage or memory.
|
| Their SSDs even aren't that fast. You can get faster ones for
| $200 (EXCEPT they are 2TB instead of 256GB)
| acchow wrote:
| If you're referring to speed, then thunderbolt does include
| PCIe support, including direct memory access.
| userbinator wrote:
| Thunderbolt is essentially external PCIe but there will
| definitely be higher latency than internal PCIe.
| wmf wrote:
| Thunderbolt 5 is PCIe 4.0 x4 but CPUs now have PCIe 5.0.
| Thunderbolt will probably always be one generation behind and
| of course more expensive due to the controller chips.
| Neywiny wrote:
| My biggest takeaway from this was finding out they have USB4 2.0.
| Come ooooonnnnnnnnn. Wikipedia starts by saying USB4 isn't 4.0
| (that'd make too much sense I guess). So disappointing.
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| It would be comical if it weren't so ridiculous. The standards
| group is surely aware of how ridiculous it is, yet they keep
| coming up with these idiotic names, and then try to defend it
| by saying "its only the technical name, not the marketing
| name", as if that matters.
|
| They honestly just need to kill off USB at this point and just
| let Thunderbolt supersede it. Thunderbolt 4 and 5 are literally
| just implementations of USB4, except the Thunderbolt standards
| group is doing a hell of a lot better job at naming things and
| certifying cables than the USB group is.
| redserk wrote:
| Regarding Thunderbolt, I don't even bother buying USB-C
| cables anymore for anything important.
|
| If it's in my backpack or used for a dock/monitor, it's going
| to be a Thunderbolt cable.
|
| Expensive? Absolutely. Unnecessary? Almost certainly. But I
| haven't had any issues with them whatsoever.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I've been using USB cables since they exist, and I had
| never any "issues" with them.
|
| The only "issue" I had, was that you often ended up without
| the proper one when you needed it. Almost all the cables
| came with the device which needed it. Only bought 2 which
| were longer.
|
| What issues do you experience so frequently that it would
| justify investing more money into it?
| izacus wrote:
| I don't think you thought your statement through. What you're
| proposing is a massive mandatory price hike on all hardware
| just because you're slightly annoyed by naming.
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| There's no mandatory price hike required. Thunderbolt is
| royalty-free as of several years ago, and at this point
| USB4 pretty much _is_, at minimum, Thunderbolt 3. For
| example USB4 hubs are, per spec, required to be TB3
| compatible, so I don't know why we would bother marketing
| them as "USB4 v1.0 / USB4 SuperSpeed++ / USB4 20 Gbps / USB
| 3.1 Gen2x2" when instead they can just be marketed as
| Thunderbolt 3 or 4.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Nobody is going to pay for a 40Gbps Thunderbolt cable to plug
| in their keyboard
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Or ten for $1 off <your preferred Chinese marketplace>
| lazide wrote:
| Data rate between 10MB/s and 2 Gb/s.
| josefx wrote:
| Irrelevant for charging.
| thrw42A8N wrote:
| This kind of cheap cable won't fast charge in any case.
| Add a few dollars if you want that.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| I hope I don't come off sounding like a twit, but does
| fast charging really matter all that much to people? I've
| had a few fast charge cables before, and although it's
| fine to have my cellphone fully charged in say, 20
| minutes, it doesn't really _mean_ anything to me, given
| that it will be left plugged in over night regardless.
|
| Perhaps it's more useful to people who are constantly
| traveling, but for someone who isn't, I guess I just
| don't see a point in it. Would I turn it down? No. Would
| I pay more for it? If it's greater than 2$ more, no. Slow
| charge is "good enough" in my eyes.
| fragmede wrote:
| Laptops need the additional power that fast charge can
| deliver to run/charge.
| thrw42A8N wrote:
| I was frustrated all day because I couldn't find my fast
| charging cable and just couldn't leave the phone plugged
| for more than 15-20 minutes at a time due to various
| activities, which also required a lot of battery charge
| (photo/video shooting), so I was dancing around the
| charger all day...
| xuki wrote:
| Pricing aside, thunderbolt cables are usually thicker and
| more rigid. Sometimes you need a thin and flexible cable,
| cheap USB-C cable is a better choice.
| usrusr wrote:
| And truly lightweight cables, for slow overnight charging
| (or for charging of small batteries, e.g. smartwatch
| scale) have all but disappeared with the shift from
| A/micro-B to C/C. It's awesome that we have near-
| universal connector for that wide a range of use cases,
| but that requires some learning about cable classes
| beyond the old "does the connector fit?" and that
| learning process is not over yet. And by learning I don't
| just mean us memorizing classes, but also an effective
| narrowing of classes, e.g. no more almost but not quite
| TB4 compliant ones.
| tjoff wrote:
| Though poor cables do drop the voltage a bit I feel that
| the proper approach would be to to just use a weak
| charger. They are "all" USB-A and there are no lack of
| USB-A -> C cables.
| thrw42A8N wrote:
| I'm holding a thin USB-C Samsung cable right now.
| twoparachute45 wrote:
| USB4 is required to support Thunderbolt, and USB4 cables
| are similar to Thunderbolt in their price and thickness, so
| this problem already exists, just with shittier naming
| conventions.
|
| Basically for any cheap use cases, you just have to buy a
| random "USB-C" cable with unknown capabilities, while for
| specific data use cases you have to buy a "USB-C" cable
| that also supports a specific data rate, either USB 3.1,
| USB 3.2, USB4 v1.0, USB4 v2.0, or Thunderbolt 3/4/5 (and
| most cables will support multiple of these, for example USB
| 3.2 Gen2x2 is the same speed as USB4 v1.0 and TB3).
| Neywiny wrote:
| Agreed. It's fine as a technical name but the consumer name
| doesn't seem to catch on or even be referenced most of the
| time. I'm still having difficulty with component
| manufacturers saying "usb 3.2" which was far as I can tell is
| 1x5, 2x5, 1x10, or 2x10. Plot twist it's always the slowest
| one but still, the standards body could've done that better.
|
| Disagree on the replacement with thunderbolt, though. USB
| historically is very different, and it's USB4 that's a clone
| of TB3. Agreed the naming is better but a lot of micros have
| USB and thunderbolt would be ridiculous for them.
| harha wrote:
| Ah thunderbolt, yet another standard that started with a promise
| of simplicity but requires a lot of digging to understand what
| actually works.
|
| For me some things worked better than expected (5K + 4K monitor
| at 60Hz, even though it states only one 5K or two 4K monitors),
| some things don't (work laptop detects the hub, but the displays
| stay blank.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| I've been dabbling with this issue for a few months. I've got a
| one-year-old ThinkPad that multi-boots Linux (Ubuntu 24.04,
| 23.10), and Windows 11. Upon purchase, I immediately upgraded the
| 1TB internal NVMe drive to a Samsung 4TB (990). Later, I had some
| difficulty while upgrading from 23.10 to 24.04. To make things
| easier while troubleshooting, I was backing up the 4TB image, and
| restoring it when the upgrade failed. After doing this a few
| times, I was looking for more speed.
|
| I tried several NVMe/TB4 enclosures. Some of them were junk, some
| were just okay, and this one (which I now have two of) is great:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CSFFMQWF
|
| I now also have three of these 8TB NVMe SSDs:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D9WT512W (I also have a few
| others that are slower and/or smaller.)
|
| I've tried a few docks, and this is the one I'm using now:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DBHG7486 It's a good dock,
| but unfortunately needs the DisplayLink driver to use the
| DisplayPort output. This works okay, but the monitor stays dark
| until the desktop is booted, and cannot be used for switching
| between Linux virtual consoles.
|
| First off, because my ThinkPad has only one TB4 port that also
| serves as the USB-C PD input, I needed a dock if I wanted to use
| a TB4 accessory while not running from the battery. The dock is
| also quite valuable for using an external (4K/60Hz) display when
| using another TB4 peripheral.
|
| The SSDs work fine when plugged into the non-TB4 port, but they
| operate at less than half of their potential speed, and are
| enumerated as /dev/sdX instead of /dev/nvmeXnX.
|
| Operating the SSDs from the TB4 port gives variable performance
| depending upon what else is connected, and when it was connected.
| The Linux PCI+bridge enumeration has some issues with hotplugable
| devices. Various combinations of pci=assign-busses, realloc,
| native, hpbussize=XX, lastbus=XX, hpmmiosize=XXXM,
| hpmmioprefsize=XG will all give varying results. At best, with my
| 4K monitor operating, I can get 20gbps on one external SSD, or
| some division of that speed distributed amongst multiple other
| SSDs.
|
| Leaving the PCIe enumeration to the kernel with no additional
| boot arguments did not go well with 23.10, but works better with
| 24.04. Hot-plugging performance is always a compromise, depending
| upon kernel parameters, and the order in which things are plugged
| in.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| Would love to hear about folks favorite docks.
|
| I have a fancy pluggable dock and after my Mac goes to sleep it
| sometimes stops working when the Mac wakes up. Often, it appears
| to go into a loop where it detects an external monitor for 5
| seconds then disconnects. Pretty annoying and guess away after a
| reboot.
| nottorp wrote:
| What annoys me is not speed, but why there are so few docks with
| a storage slot inside.
|
| It's bad enough that you have to have a box hanging off your
| machine, but with most docks you have to have several boxes.
| goosedragons wrote:
| There are several designed that way for the Steam Deck. They
| are just generic USB C hubs with a slot of the deck. Not
| Thunderbolt though.
| nottorp wrote:
| I have a TB3 dock with a fast ish nvme slot. But I only found
| two options when I looked... something from OWC and the WD
| "game dock" i ended up buying.
|
| It does do the job including display passthrough.
| peachpossum wrote:
| I've been using an OWC 14 port TB3 dock with my 2018 Intel Mac
| mini for about 5 years now with no issues. I keep a 2TB Samsung
| T7 external SSD connected and it is always mounted when I wake
| the system from sleep. I've been very happy with this dock so
| far. https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3DK14PSG/
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