SonnetEcho 11 Thunderbolt 4 Dock

I bought this because I have a 2019 i9 iMac, and purchased two external USB-C SSDs (Kingston XS2000) to serve as backups (a 2 TB for Carbon Copy Cloner, and a 4 TB for Time Machine). Unfortunately, my iMac has only two TB ports, and I was using both of those to drive external monitors. Thus I instead had to plug these into its USB-A ports, resulting in poorer performance and frequent disconnection. Thus I realized I would instead need to plug these into TB ports, which this dock provides (it has three of them).It's a great product, and has worked without issue: With my Kingston XS2000's plugged into it, there are no more disconnections, and they appear to work just as well as they do when I tested them by connecting them directly to my iMac's TB ports. All the other ports also work without issue.In addition, since all the ports on my iMac are on the back, and thus inconvenient to access, it's a great convenience to have an SD card reader, USB port, and headphone jack all easily accessible on the front face.It's also nice that it's fanless, and thus silent. In spite of being fanless, it does not get hot.I only have two small criticisms:1) It's unfortunate that the fast USB ports (USB 3.2 Gen 2) are all on the back, and the one on the front is slower (USB 2.0), since I use the front USB port when I need to transfer files to or from a USB key, and thus have to wait longer for those operations to complete. If you needed to have one slow port, it would make more sense to me to put it on the back, where you could attach, say, a mouse or some other device that doesn't benefit from a faster interface.2) This is minor, but: The cable to the computer comes out of the front of the device. Since you're going to leave that attached permanently*, there's no need for it to come out of the front, and it would be cleaner to have it exit from the back. [*Even if you have a laptop that you need to unplug, you're probably going to unplug the cable from the laptop instead of from the device.]Also, a big-picture comment: In retrospect, if I knew now what I knew then, I would have instead purchased a fanless Thunderbolt dock that could accommodate two SSDs internally (instead of having a TB dock plus the two Kingston XS2000's plugged into it), since the former would be cleaner, and give better SSD performance. This is not in any way a criticism of this dock; instead, it's just that I now realize a different configuration would be more suitable for my needs. Sonnet does have such a device, but unfortunately it has a fan. SIIG has a fanless device, but I can't personally speak to its robustness.

The Sonnet Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 Dock has been a fantastic addition to my MacBook Pro setup. Initially, I was a bit skeptical, but it has exceeded my expectations. It works great, allowing me to connect two monitors seamlessly, and it also charges my MacBook Pro. This dock is reliable and versatile, making it an excellent investment for enhancing productivity.

Three Thunderbolt ports:1. Dual monitors (SABRENT Thunderbolt 3 to Dual HDMI 2.0)2. Thunderbolt Audio interface (MOTU 828es)3. Storage drives( SABRENT Thunderbolt 3 to Dual NVMe M.2 SSD Tool Free Enclosure)EthernetUSB to a big ol’ USB hub.I connect my MacBook Pro to one USBC Thunderbolt cable in my studio. It charges ‘from’ the cable and communicates to all of the devices (including about 7 USB peripherals) ‘through’ the same cable.It works splendidly.

This dock is nuts, it does everything it says with a simple port layout that makes it incredible user friendly (and aesthetic). I had two of these (I have a 4 monitor set up using a Mac M1 Pro Max) I was planning on using 2 of them to power all 4 monitors (which worked!) but this device gives off a loud whirring noise (power coil whine) when there is another dock supplying power to my Mac. I made the noise when my ThinkPad dock is connected or when 2 of these are connected. Small issue, I know, but people looking to get multiple of these for their unnecessary home set ups should be warned that it gets loud the second there are two plugged into your machine. This is dock specific, I now have two think pad docks and they work great with no noise!

Purchased this thunderbolt 4 dock to use with my M1 Max 2021 MacBook Pro.The Caldigit TS3 PLUS became unreliable when I upgraded my MacBook Pro from the intel version to the M1Max one. The monitors would not come on when the computer was woken from sleep state, in addition the hard drives would disconnect.The sonnet eco 11 did not have the monitor issue, but the hard drives would still disconnect when the computer went to a sleep state.I, then purchased the Satechi thunderbolt 4 dock. The satechi has the exact same ports as the sonnet echo 11, but worked flawlessly. The monitors came on when the computer was switched on from sleep state and the hard drives stayed connected.So I returned the sonnet echo 11.

The dock initially worked great with my Macbook Pro. It supports two external 4K displays via the thunderbolt port. The downlink thuderbolt 3 port also delivers the transfer speed as expected.However, all of the USB-A ports stopped working after just one night. There is not even any power output from them, so they cannot even be used to charge a cellphone. Very disappointed.

I bought this because I was tired of being frame capped on a cheaper dock I had. With the 4080 in my laptop I was playing cyberpunk at 70+ fps. On less demanding games I was well into the 100’s. I have a 3440 x 1440p monitor and this dock never limited me. I’m sure tjere is a max, but I don’t remember what it is.It is TB4 ports only though so you’ll need specific cables but it’s worth it if you’re on a laptop using an external monitor.

I went through a couple of Thunderbolt 3 docks before settling on one from Pluggable that showed itself to be most reliable. My only issue with that dock was the 60 watt power delivery, which was not enough to keep up with my MacBook Pro’s demand under heavy use, and the fact that it had only two Thunderbolt ports on the back.After a recent upgrade in peripherals, I needed more thunderbolt ports. This unit was my solution and it has performed perfectly so far.