Fast dock for m4 mini, with card reader

[zalle]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a M4 mac mini hub with the following requirements:

NVME with fast transfer speed, card reader, and I would prefer a slim one.

Ugreen ones, for example, only get around 1000mbps speeds, while the Quiizlab UH60 and UH61 (vertical) have read and write speeds of around 3000mbps.

The Quiizlab ones have a couple of problems for me: The UH60 does not include SD card reader, and is bigger, maybe because there is no fan, and so it is quieter. The UH61 is bulky and vertical.

Is there a fast one, with SD card that is not vertical?

Is a vertical one a bad choice? Because, thinking of it, it will stand behind the monitor, and I will only see the lower part of the dock.

Would you recommend something else?

By the way, I want a fast 4tb NVME. Can you point me to a good, fast option, without being the top of the range, most expensive Samsung?

Thanks

 

[FreakinEurekan]

For NVMe, I'd only do Thunderbolt. Which tends to really increase the price, if it's a "Hub"

What I did on my own Mac mini, is a Thunderbolt NVMe drive - and a USB hub. Best of both worlds.

 

[zalle]

What read/write speeds do you get?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Dunno, the Mac isn't with me. Not as fast as the internal drive, but "Fast enough"

 

[zalle]

"fast enough" won´t cut it. I want 3000mbps 😂

 

[PaulD-UK]

@zalle "I'm looking for a M4 mac mini hub with the following requirements:
NVME with fast transfer speed, card reader...
..."fast enough" won´t cut it. I want 3000mbps..."

You have to have a TB5 M4 Mac Pro mini, and a TB5 dock to do all this with one enclosure.

A M4 Mac mini with TB4 can only do this using two TB4 ports:
1. A USB4 enclosure plugged into the Mac, with a PCIe 4 NVMe SSD, can do 3000+ MBps, but there is no further connection possible, using an ASM2464PD enclosure chip.
2. A TB4 Hub can have a SD card reader, and has downstream TB4/USB4 ports.
But if you connect a USB4 enclosure to the Intel JHL 8440 TB4 controller chip, which all TB4 hubs use, it seems the ASM2464PD chip in any USB4 enclosure with revert to TB3, which will give data transfer speeds of less than 2800MBps, much less with some MVMe SSDs.

But no TB4 (JHL8440) enclosure is able to support an internal NMVe slot at higher R/W rates than one channel of PCIe 3 ~800MBps.
That's the way Intel designed it.

So with a TB4 Mac, you have to have two enclosures, a USB4 one for a PCIe 4 SSD, and another TB4 hub with an SD card slot, USB 3.x, ethernet or audio...
And if you plug the NVMe enclosure into the dock, you can't achieve 3000 MBps...

That's the way it is. 😉

 

[zalle]

@zalle "I'm looking for a M4 mac mini hub with the following requirements:
NVME with fast transfer speed, card reader...
..."fast enough" won´t cut it. I want 3000mbps..."

You have to have a TB5 M4 Mac Pro mini, and a TB5 dock to do all this with one enclosure.

A M4 Mac mini with TB4 can only do this using two TB4 ports:
1. A USB4 enclosure plugged into the Mac, with a PCIe 4 NVMe SSD, can do 3000+ MBps, but there is no further connection possible, using an ASM2464PD enclosure chip.
2. A TB4 Hub can have a SD card reader, and has downstream TB4/USB4 ports.
But if you connect a USB4 enclosure to the Intel JHL 8440 TB4 controller chip, which all TB4 hubs use, it seems the ASM2464PD chip in any USB4 enclosure with revert to TB3, which will give data transfer speeds of less than 2800MBps, much less with some MVMe SSDs.

But no TB4 (JHL8440) enclosure is able to support an internal NMVe slot at higher R/W rates than one channel of PCIe 3 ~800MBps.
That's the way Intel designed it.

So with a TB4 Mac, you have to have two enclosures, a USB4 one for a PCIe 4 SSD, and another TB4 hub with an SD card slot, USB 3.x, ethernet or audio...
And if you plug the NVMe enclosure into the dock, you can't achieve 3000 MBps...

That's the way it is. 😉

There are some 40gbps which let you plug into a M4 mac mini and give you speeds above 3000MBps. Like this one (onfortunately it doesn't have SD card port), see minute 9:30:

I don't NEED above 3000MBps, but I don't want to be stuck at 800-900MBps, which is what you get with a 10gbps hub.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@zalle Craig Neidel is using a M4 PRO TB5 mini in that video.
That’s why he is getting ~3400MBps SSD speeds.

The dock is most likely using a new ASM USB4 Gen2 controller chip that uses the TB5 protocol, and can give 2 channels of PCIe 4 for the SSD, and the remaining bandwidth for the other ports.

So when you connect the hub to a M4 non-Pro TB4 mini the NVMe slot will only get two channels of PCIe 3 (~1600MBps) speeds.

Fast enough for most people not to notice, but not ‘3000MBps’…

 

[zalle]

dammmmnnnn

I just want to invest my money in the fastest option for a nvme (I mostly edit photos with lightroom). Is a 40gbps hub a good option, or would I get faster speeds with an external enclosure?

 

[PaulD-UK]

Just get a finned USB4 enclosure, and whichever 4TB NVMe SSD you can afford, and connect a separate UHS-ll SD card reader to the front USB-C port on your mini.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

"fast enough" won´t cut it. I want 3000mbps 😂

yeah, as others have said - that's TB5 speeds.

I actually have a M4 Pro Mac mini with TB5, but my NVMe drive is in a TB3 enclosure moved over from my old M1 mini. So I'm sure I'm not getting "3000mpbs" but I'm certainly getting faster than any USB speeds.

The concept stands though... don't look for an all-in-one unicorn; storage is storage and everything else can just be USB

 

[pivo6]

he dock is most likely using a new ASM USB4 Gen2 controller chip that uses the TB5 protocol, and can give 2 channels of PCIe 4 for the SSD, and the remaining bandwidth for the other ports.