compatible with windows 10 in mind too? not going to lie, 99.99% of windows users that have thunderbolt 3 arn't using them.... this would be a great buy for many including myself is this is the case.
It is compatible with any device with at least one fully fledged Thunderbolt 3 port (not USB-C that is actually 3.1 Gen 2 plus maybe power delivery, since that provides only 1/4 the speed of TB3).
I pre-ordered one many moons ago and got it a few weeks back. So far I've been quite happy with it. I didn't have huge demands (just USB, audio, and mini-DP) but it works well.
A rather long explanation of the datasheet (including the mention of it having 2 TB ports which is technically correct but one of them will most likely be the uplink, hence leaving only one USB-C/Thunderbolt port for free use), however the most important question has not been answered: I can see that is has an external power connector and most likely will ship with a power brick, but does it do USB PD and if so, how much of it?
Okay, I checked all documentation and data sheets I could find but the information really is that lackluster. So it does include the power brick, however it does not say how much juice that'll provide at maximum. The TB ports do seem to support USB PD and according to the overview video it's up to 65W (would have wished for more, but okay), the USB A ports do support the "High Power" USB battery charging with 1.5A.
It does list the used chips, e.g. the "Ultra fast" Gigabit Ethernet port is powered by Intel, so at least that is good.
But other than that, especially at this price point, the level of provided information by OWC is totally unacceptable.
"Though given the number of PCIe-to-X controllers inside, I'm not all that surprised at the price." i think this is the kind of info readers expect, and more like it. we can check OWC for the datasheets.
I wish they would use a USB-C port for the power-in as well. I guess high power USB-C adapters are still expensive relative to the coax ones, but still, they're primarily marketing this to recent Mac users who would likely have a USB-C power brick/cable already.
Not sure that, but it's also much more complex to negotiate and manage 2 USB-PD connections. The way they do it with the custom power brick they at least know how much juice they can expect to have available.
s/Not sure that/Not only that/g . Please also note that the dock itself might need considerable power for itself and e.g. USB charging which has to be taken from the input, too so there might not be too much left for the Laptop...
My first two thoughts are - 1. Apple laptops need a docking connector. As inelegant as they are, docking stations and port replicators are important where people use laptops for work tasks. MBPs have reduced professional appeal because the design doesn't include a better docking solution.
2. These connectors and external devices should be on some sort of short range, high speed wireless connection as opposed to a relatively frail physical connector (or at least something more easily detached like the MagSafe power connections) because daily connection and disconnections are bound to wear out TB port. I know wireless isn't there yet for all the bandwidth the OWC dock potentially needs, but I would really love to see the industry heading in that direction someday.
1. Thanks to TB3, even staunch docking port companies like Dell are beginning to ditch their docking connectors. TB3 is just as good but doesn't require the asinine electrical and mechanical design work on the laptops (route >100Gbit/s and up to 330W over 150+pins, and fit it a specific place of the machine, and reinforce the mobo and chassis right there). Well, in theory, anyways.. anyone and their dogs know about the Dell TB15 and it's litany of issues, and how it got replaced reeeeal fast (not) with the TB16.
2.1. You don't give USB-C enough credit. USB-C is a lot tougher than it looks based on my experiences with it. Besides, since it's not a captive cable, it's not exactly a big deal to swap a failed cable. On top of that, the USB-C port/cable combination has also been designed very explicitly to fail at the cable end of things rather than the device/receptable end, so you should only be out a $20 TB3 cable, not a $300 dock. Sure, it's not nearly as nice as magsafe, but such is the nature of high-bandwidth connections. The saddest part, really, is that USB-C can only do 100W, so if you have a >100W gaming laptop or mobile workstation , you still need to plug the barrel-plug charger in anyways.
2.2 Have you ever used a classic/traditional docking station? Those things are fragile as hell if you really look at it in detail (so much mechanical crap needed to undock the laptop, and the massive 150+ contact points is super easy to destroy if you're not careful). And besides, anywhere you are likely to use a dock, you're very unlikely to ever have cables getting tripped over, crushed, bent, kinked or otherwise abused.
2.3 Wireless isn't good enough, sadly. 802.11ad hit ~6.7Gbit/s max, compared to TB3's 40Gbit/s. In theory 802.11ay should have enough (~100Gbit/s planned), but I reckon TB will blow well past the 400Gbit/s mark by the time that that shows up. Plus, the reliability of a wired connection really cannot be beat.
All in all, docking ports are a hell of a shitty hack that's worked very well for the past 20 years. Now that we can reliably (ish..) replace it with basically no compromise, we all should. I'm looking forward to my next laptop having TB because of it.
Hmm...USB-C isn't bad froma durability perspective and yes, the cable is designed to fail first, but how many times will the cable be the first point of failure before the motherboard's connector fails? Maybe it isn't a widespread problem, but I've already seen USB-C connectors die and I question their durability.
As for docking stations, Dell's were pretty good. Both the E-series and D-series docks held up very well over the years in my offices. They were durable even when subjected to apathetic or angry/frustrated end users that didn't exercise the least bit of care for their equipment. HP's Probook docks were equally reliable. I've personally fielded hundreds of each and worked in offices that had many thousands deployed. Those that I've dealt with were not fragile.
I agree that wireless technologies aren't up to the task yet. It seems like 802.11-derived standards aren't suited to the sorts of local, wired-like connections a docking station is meant to handle. Something much shorter range that might require the laptop simply rest in a cradle that lacks a physical connection would be suitable since transmission range isn't the end objective, just eliminating the need for users to angrily jam cables into the sides of their laptops.
In the end, I'm not against Thunderbolt as a present day solution to the problem. It can work for now. My preference is merely to move away from the need for physical connectors or to at least make those connectors far more durable. MagSafe is a good example, but any surface mount ball-and-pad array would be better than something that must be physically inserted several mm into the system.
As an owner of one of their other thunderbolt docks I'd stay away, far away. I returned mine 3 times for defects. They blamed my MacBook pro as the problem. Took me MacBook to the apple store and had the Tbolt port tested, no issues. OWC uses cheap chips in creating their crap. I now have a very expensive thunderbolt paperweight. Because I was past the return period with all the different exchanges OWN would not give me my money back. I will never buy an OWC product again.
to buy from OWC is like playing Russian Roulette. I had a Thunderbolt 2 doc that was replaced 3 times. OWC claims there was nothing wrong with the units I sent back. Told me it was my MacBook Pro's thunderbolt port causing the problem. Took my MacBook Pro to Apple to have it checked out and Apple said there was nothing wrong with the port. My TB ports worked fine when connecting a TB to HDMI adapter and a TB to network adapter. Never had an issue using the TB ports that way. To boot because I was past my return period in getting a refund, I'm now stuck with a $200 paperweight. Will never buy an OWC product again they do not stand behind their products and put the blame on other companies.
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austinsguitar - Thursday, September 21, 2017 - link
compatible with windows 10 in mind too? not going to lie, 99.99% of windows users that have thunderbolt 3 arn't using them.... this would be a great buy for many including myself is this is the case.Santoval - Thursday, September 21, 2017 - link
It is compatible with any device with at least one fully fledged Thunderbolt 3 port (not USB-C that is actually 3.1 Gen 2 plus maybe power delivery, since that provides only 1/4 the speed of TB3).lmcd - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
Rationale isn't the speed, it's that TB3 explicitly supports PCIe and requires active cables.ken.c - Thursday, September 21, 2017 - link
I pre-ordered one many moons ago and got it a few weeks back. So far I've been quite happy with it. I didn't have huge demands (just USB, audio, and mini-DP) but it works well.enoch861 - Thursday, September 21, 2017 - link
Have you been using it exclusively on a Mac or have you had a chance to try it on a Windows computer to see how things work?Daniel Egger - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
A rather long explanation of the datasheet (including the mention of it having 2 TB ports which is technically correct but one of them will most likely be the uplink, hence leaving only one USB-C/Thunderbolt port for free use), however the most important question has not been answered: I can see that is has an external power connector and most likely will ship with a power brick, but does it do USB PD and if so, how much of it?Daniel Egger - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
Okay, I checked all documentation and data sheets I could find but the information really is that lackluster. So it does include the power brick, however it does not say how much juice that'll provide at maximum. The TB ports do seem to support USB PD and according to the overview video it's up to 65W (would have wished for more, but okay), the USB A ports do support the "High Power" USB battery charging with 1.5A.It does list the used chips, e.g. the "Ultra fast" Gigabit Ethernet port is powered by Intel, so at least that is good.
But other than that, especially at this price point, the level of provided information by OWC is totally unacceptable.
jospoortvliet - Sunday, September 24, 2017 - link
*sarcasm* apple users don't ask for specs. They just buy the most expensive product *sarcasm*warrenk81 - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
"Though given the number of PCIe-to-X controllers inside, I'm not all that surprised at the price." i think this is the kind of info readers expect, and more like it. we can check OWC for the datasheets.alanh - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
I wish they would use a USB-C port for the power-in as well. I guess high power USB-C adapters are still expensive relative to the coax ones, but still, they're primarily marketing this to recent Mac users who would likely have a USB-C power brick/cable already.Daniel Egger - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
Not sure that, but it's also much more complex to negotiate and manage 2 USB-PD connections. The way they do it with the custom power brick they at least know how much juice they can expect to have available.Daniel Egger - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
s/Not sure that/Not only that/g . Please also note that the dock itself might need considerable power for itself and e.g. USB charging which has to be taken from the input, too so there might not be too much left for the Laptop...BrokenCrayons - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
My first two thoughts are - 1. Apple laptops need a docking connector. As inelegant as they are, docking stations and port replicators are important where people use laptops for work tasks. MBPs have reduced professional appeal because the design doesn't include a better docking solution.2. These connectors and external devices should be on some sort of short range, high speed wireless connection as opposed to a relatively frail physical connector (or at least something more easily detached like the MagSafe power connections) because daily connection and disconnections are bound to wear out TB port. I know wireless isn't there yet for all the bandwidth the OWC dock potentially needs, but I would really love to see the industry heading in that direction someday.
ZeDestructor - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
1. Thanks to TB3, even staunch docking port companies like Dell are beginning to ditch their docking connectors. TB3 is just as good but doesn't require the asinine electrical and mechanical design work on the laptops (route >100Gbit/s and up to 330W over 150+pins, and fit it a specific place of the machine, and reinforce the mobo and chassis right there). Well, in theory, anyways.. anyone and their dogs know about the Dell TB15 and it's litany of issues, and how it got replaced reeeeal fast (not) with the TB16.2.1. You don't give USB-C enough credit. USB-C is a lot tougher than it looks based on my experiences with it. Besides, since it's not a captive cable, it's not exactly a big deal to swap a failed cable. On top of that, the USB-C port/cable combination has also been designed very explicitly to fail at the cable end of things rather than the device/receptable end, so you should only be out a $20 TB3 cable, not a $300 dock. Sure, it's not nearly as nice as magsafe, but such is the nature of high-bandwidth connections. The saddest part, really, is that USB-C can only do 100W, so if you have a >100W gaming laptop or mobile workstation , you still need to plug the barrel-plug charger in anyways.
2.2 Have you ever used a classic/traditional docking station? Those things are fragile as hell if you really look at it in detail (so much mechanical crap needed to undock the laptop, and the massive 150+ contact points is super easy to destroy if you're not careful). And besides, anywhere you are likely to use a dock, you're very unlikely to ever have cables getting tripped over, crushed, bent, kinked or otherwise abused.
2.3 Wireless isn't good enough, sadly. 802.11ad hit ~6.7Gbit/s max, compared to TB3's 40Gbit/s. In theory 802.11ay should have enough (~100Gbit/s planned), but I reckon TB will blow well past the 400Gbit/s mark by the time that that shows up. Plus, the reliability of a wired connection really cannot be beat.
All in all, docking ports are a hell of a shitty hack that's worked very well for the past 20 years. Now that we can reliably (ish..) replace it with basically no compromise, we all should. I'm looking forward to my next laptop having TB because of it.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
Hmm...USB-C isn't bad froma durability perspective and yes, the cable is designed to fail first, but how many times will the cable be the first point of failure before the motherboard's connector fails? Maybe it isn't a widespread problem, but I've already seen USB-C connectors die and I question their durability.As for docking stations, Dell's were pretty good. Both the E-series and D-series docks held up very well over the years in my offices. They were durable even when subjected to apathetic or angry/frustrated end users that didn't exercise the least bit of care for their equipment. HP's Probook docks were equally reliable. I've personally fielded hundreds of each and worked in offices that had many thousands deployed. Those that I've dealt with were not fragile.
I agree that wireless technologies aren't up to the task yet. It seems like 802.11-derived standards aren't suited to the sorts of local, wired-like connections a docking station is meant to handle. Something much shorter range that might require the laptop simply rest in a cradle that lacks a physical connection would be suitable since transmission range isn't the end objective, just eliminating the need for users to angrily jam cables into the sides of their laptops.
In the end, I'm not against Thunderbolt as a present day solution to the problem. It can work for now. My preference is merely to move away from the need for physical connectors or to at least make those connectors far more durable. MagSafe is a good example, but any surface mount ball-and-pad array would be better than something that must be physically inserted several mm into the system.
jabber - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
Hmmm I've managed to pass on TB1, 2 and 3 so far. Maybe I'll bite at TB5 or 6?bull2760 - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link
As an owner of one of their other thunderbolt docks I'd stay away, far away. I returned mine 3 times for defects. They blamed my MacBook pro as the problem. Took me MacBook to the apple store and had the Tbolt port tested, no issues. OWC uses cheap chips in creating their crap. I now have a very expensive thunderbolt paperweight. Because I was past the return period with all the different exchanges OWN would not give me my money back. I will never buy an OWC product again.bull2760 - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
to buy from OWC is like playing Russian Roulette. I had a Thunderbolt 2 doc that was replaced 3 times. OWC claims there was nothing wrong with the units I sent back. Told me it was my MacBook Pro's thunderbolt port causing the problem. Took my MacBook Pro to Apple to have it checked out and Apple said there was nothing wrong with the port. My TB ports worked fine when connecting a TB to HDMI adapter and a TB to network adapter. Never had an issue using the TB ports that way. To boot because I was past my return period in getting a refund, I'm now stuck with a $200 paperweight. Will never buy an OWC product again they do not stand behind their products and put the blame on other companies.