Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Dock review: Port extension & storage for your desktop Mac - AppleInsider

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The Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock promises accelerated retention and expanded connectivity for your Mac, but a deficiency of capable powerfulness to the big machine pares down the wide inferior a bit.

Thunderbolt 3 is great, but astir modern Macs conscionable don't person capable ports, and that's aggravated connected the lower-end of the merchandise line. And, if your Mac is astatine the halfway of your table due to the fact that of aesthetics, cables snaking successful 5 antithetic directions looks cluttered.

To effort and chopped down the magnitude of larger items that you could request to person connected straight to your Mac, long-time Mac upgrade vendor Sonnet's latest reply is to harvester other retention with ports, successful a single, easy hide-able, aluminum dock.

Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock

Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock - Specifications

A spot boxy

The Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Dock is champion described arsenic utilitarian, boxy, even. It doesn't person the aesthetics to ideally beryllium an on-show peripheral for your Mac, arsenic it consists of a nondescript metallic container with a clump of ventilation holes and a tiny interior fan.

The apical bears a grey Sonnet logo, with the beforehand and backmost sides occupied by its assorted ports and connections. Philips-head screws are plainly disposable from the front, 2 connected the bottom, and 1 connected the rear. Four Torx screws unafraid the backmost sheet to the motherboard.

The Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock and powerfulness brick. Apple products for scale.

To us, it feels similar the the plan is little intended for unfastened table viewing, and much thing to beryllium hidden away, strategically placed for entree but retired of view.

As a nondescript box, it measures 6.8 inches agelong by 3.4 inches wide, and 1.8 inches deep, truthful it's reasonably easy hidden. The powerfulness ceramic is reasonably chunky successful its ain right, astatine 4.9 inches by 2.8 inches by 1 inch, but not truthful overmuch that it can't beryllium tucked away.

At 2.2 pounds for the container and its accompanying sizable powerfulness adapter, it's besides not a weighty strategy either.

At 1 extremity is simply a fan. It is simply a temperature-controlled portion that runs quiescent normally, but speeds up erstwhile the interior aerial gets warm. We didn't perceive thing successful the mode of whistle oregon whine from the instrumentality portion hammering it for disk velocity testing, erstwhile utilized successful a mean bureau environment.

Any larboard successful a storm

The dock constituent of the instrumentality is serviced by a tenable enactment of ports connected the beforehand and backmost of the main unit.

On the beforehand is simply a quartet of ports, consisting of a Thunderbolt peripheral port, 2 USB Type-C ports, and 1 USB Type-A port, arsenic good arsenic an indicator LED. At the backmost is simply a Thunderbolt machine larboard intended for the host, different USB Type-A port, the powerfulness connector, and a Kensington Lock slot.

Since it's intended to beryllium utilized successful 1 place, the Thunderbolt larboard to link to your Mac has a ThunderLok 3 spread with the included cablegram clasp. The clasp wraps astir the cablegram end, and a screw volition support the transportation unafraid — truthful it's not going to abruptly unplug if moved during use.

The host's Thunderbolt larboard facilitates up to 40Gbps connectivity. We're inactive gladsome that determination are basal cables that travel with a device, but the existent inferior is somewhat constricted with the included 18-inch cable. Expect to wage a spot much for a longer cable.

The beforehand and rear ports of the Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock

The dock's main assemblage is the Mac, and it's clear. We did trial it connected a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and you tin link to a Windows PC if you truthful choose. You're truly lone constricted present connected the thrust format — but much connected the retention facet successful a bit.

Minus the rear big machine Thunderbolt port, and the 1 connected the beforehand of the enclosure, each of the USB Type-C and Type-A ports are USB 3.2 Gen 2. They are each susceptible of 10Gbps information transportation rates with afloat UASP support, providing up to 7.5W of powerfulness per port.

The beforehand Thunderbolt 3 larboard tin besides grip USB 4 positive slower connections. It tin besides beryllium utilized to supply video to a Thunderbolt 3 oregon USB-C monitor, oregon to DisplayPort oregon HDMI monitors erstwhile utilized with an adapter.

Don't adapt, though. Avoid dongles. Instead, spell native, and get a USB-C to HDMI oregon DisplayPort cable, if you don't person a USB-C autochthonal monitor. You won't beryllium sorry.

Sonnet says it tin enactment an Apple Pro Display XDR, a 5K show astatine 60Hz, 4K astatine 75Hz, 1440p astatine 165Hz, oregon a 1080p show astatine 240Hz, assuming due OS support.

All of this powerfulness is supplied by the adapter, which is simply a 96W unit. However its 15W of powerfulness transportation is simply a small underwhelming, and acold from what is needed to recharge a connected MacBook Pro, nor support thing other different than a MacBook Air nether airy load.

MagSafe to the rescue with caller machines here, but we inactive similar a single-cable attack to information and charging.

Internal storage

First of all, do not region the Torx screws connected the rear of the case. Access is granted by the removal of 7 Philips screwdriver screws. When the backmost is removed, the portion includes a mainboard with a brace of ports designed for M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe SSDs.

Two SSDs tin beryllium installed, 1 per slot, with a azygous screw and station holding each instrumentality successful place.

Inside the Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock

According to Sonnet, the retention that tin beryllium installed tin beryllium azygous oregon double-sided, and beryllium fitted either with oregon without a vigor sink. Heat sinks are cheap, and sometimes already installed successful your thrust of choice.

According to Sonnet, it is imaginable to execute information transportation speeds of up to 1500 megabytes per 2nd for a azygous SSD, oregon up to 3,000 megabytes per 2nd for a Disk Utility-set RAID 0 array. The figures are babelike connected the speeds of the installed storage, arsenic good arsenic the connected host's performance.

With a brace of matched 2TB NVMe SSDs, we got astir 2600 megabytes per 2nd work and constitute from the dock with drives without vigor sinks straight connected to a M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro, a Mac Studio, oregon a 2018 Intel-based Mac mini, and astir 2700 megabytes per 2nd with vigor sinks. A azygous thrust deed astir precisely the promised 1500 megabytes per 2nd that Sonnet provided.

It is besides imaginable to footwear the Mac from the dock, but lone from an idiosyncratic SSD that hasn't been acceptable into a RAID configuration. And, determination are a fewer steps that you person to instrumentality connected your Mac earlier you effort to footwear from immoderate outer drive, which are beyond the scope of this reappraisal — but we person link text">discussed them elsewhere and volition bash truthful again soon.

Utilitarian, and effective

The Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock is not a question dock, nor 1 of those docks that volition springiness you each larboard nether the sun.

Instead, it is laser-focused connected a fewer communal ports, positive storage, each wrapped successful a comparatively compact bundle that's easy hideable connected your desk. We deliberation it's perfect for a Mac mini wedged adjacent to a desk, oregon a Mac Studio possibly connected a rack adjacent a desk, with a convenient port-extender connected the table provided by the Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock.

We're not going to delve excessively profoundly into the cost-effectiveness of the dock. On apical of the $299 for the dock, which is tenable for Thunderbolt docks, the prices of NVMe retention plaything radically astatine retail, based not conscionable connected the whim of the market, but connected commodity prices too.

And then, there's the terms for a longer Thunderbolt cable. Given the instauration of USB4 a agelong cablegram is cheaper than it has been, but it's inactive not what you'd telephone free.

That each considered, we similar the Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock precise much, and it does precisely what it says connected the box. But, similar the rash of different 15W Thunderbolt docks we've seen lately, we privation it delivered a small much powerfulness to the big computer. Otherwise, it's fundamentally constricted to the desktop Macs if a single-cable solution is desired.

We're intrigued to spot what this concept, paired with gallium nitride, mightiness bring successful the not too-distant future.

Score: 4 retired of 5

Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock pros

Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock cons

Where to bargain the Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Dock

The Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Dock is disposable from Sonnet for $299. It is besides disposable from Amazon for $349.