Just one note - the eGPU was tested on an Intel MacBook Pro , not the MacBook Air we were using at the beginning of the video. The M1 Macs don’t support eGPUs at the moment.
Great review of the OWC hub. For those interested in more ports take a look at their Thunderbolt 4 Dock, it’s more expensive of course but you get what you pay for...
o far this looks like the hub to get when I go M1. Thanks for your review - I now understand the hub much better, and am now confident it is a solution to the M1 computers reduced connectivity. Good solid content.
Thanks for a brilliant review. I’ve been looking for something like this since I got my M1 mini and found so many of the larger, more expensive TB hubs / docks to be overkill. This seems perfect.
I absolutely love & appreciate how thorough your reviews always are! I got all the answers I needed. Thank you so much! As a side note, I think we need GaN technology to become mainstream ASAP. Having such a large power adapter for a compact hub can be a deal breaker if you need to use it on the go. I compare this 60W adapter to the 90W RAVPower or even the 100W Hyppr Sonic USB-C Wall Chargers, and I'm just amazed by how much smaller these two are compared to the one you showed! I wonder whether getting a USB-C to (whatever the power port on the OWC Hub is called) cable and connecting it to one of these two compact chargers instead of the stock adapter would do the trick! Thoughts?
I have this device. Can't emphasize this enough... this is only a USB 4 / Thunderbolt 4 Device. For Apple, as of January 2021, this will only work with the M1 Macs.
I have recently purchase that owc hub , and to my surprise it does work with thunderbolt 3 (Alienware m15 R4) , connect a thundebolt drive and it recognised in intel thunderbolt control center with speeds over 1.3GB/s. Granted it has been over a year, it seems that there is a diffrent revisions of this product
Some caveats to consider for this hub when using older hardware. I pre-ordered this when Lon published this video. I finally got around to updating my daily driver 2018 Mini to Big Sur and connected the OWC Hub. I have a TB3TB2 converter and a TB2->FW that is connected to a Drobo. It was working ok connected to the Mini, but the Hub only shows the TB2->FW and not the Drobo. I also use an external USB2 HDD for Time Machine. It is not recognized when connected to the USBA 3.2 port on the OWC Hub. I also tried connecting via TB3 port on the Hub using USBAUSBC adapter but not recognized either. Hub works ok when connecting USBC->DP adapter.
thanks for mentioning Intel's thunderbolt PDF, that helps learning more about TB3. I gave 👍. if possible, more clearly show url or put the link on some where in the video or description
You kept saying gigabits (Gbps, lower case b) per second - but disk transfers by convention are gigabytes per second (GBps, capital B). Networking usually uses bit per second. They did denote GBps correctly in your BlackMagic app display, but whoever wrote the PDF seems to have gotten it wrong where transfer rates are denote Gbps instead of GBps. Just for future reference Lon. Thanks for the video - clear and informative,
OWC put out something like this four years ago and had to recall them because of a fire hazard. I hope this one works okay because I can use this thing if I can be sure it won't catch on fire.
is there a protective plastic over the logo on top if the hub? if yes, would be nice to remove it. it would look better ;) I also noticed it in you next video. thanks for the good work and have a good new year!
I purchased this OWC 4 Hub. My experience was not as good. With ext thunderbolt 4 SSD connected had 1400 W 1700 R. Connected directly to back of M1 Mac mini had 2000 W 2400 R. With a Crucial 500GB USB-C SSD mid 500's r/w with dock. 800 r/w connected directly. Sent it to OWC and they said its fine. When I get it back I will document the speed differences and make my first RU-vid video. I personally wont buy from them again. Check their BBB score 1 out of 5 stars along with the 1 star reviews on their previous TB3 dock on Amazon.
Fantastic review of what my be exactly what I am looking for. I have a mid-2012 MBPro 2.6 gHz with a 15" display. I have removed the superdrive and replaced it with a TB of storage and upgraded the system drive to a Samsung 860 Pro 256 gig SSD and upped the memory to a16gig. It runs well and does everything that I need plus. I am wondering if I could use a dongle to make this Thunderbolt Hub work with my Thunderbolt 2 system? I realize that I would be getting slower speeds, but they would still be faster than USB 2.0. Additionally, I have a 27" LED Cinema Display, any thoughts on how I might be able to hook it up to the OWC Thunderbolt Hub to get it to work? Really enjoyed the video. Great Job!!
All Thunderbolt now needs is more bandwidth. They need to at least move to PCIe 4.0x4 but even that would be coming late to the party with PCIe 5.0 said to be coming to Intel Alder Lake Hybrid CPUs and 1st Gen PCIe 4.0 SSDs and GPUs already available.
I have an OWC thunderbolt 3 docking station. I want one of these because although I’m able to use two displays from it, one of them is a DP port and the other one is via the thunderbolt port. Sometimes the DP one doesn’t turn on and other times it turns on way slower. What I want to do is plug this thunderbolt hub you’re reviewing, into my dock and then plug both of my monitors into the hub. Is this daisy chaining, and does this work???
I wonder with the 60w of power on the port which connects the laptop would this be safe to plug into a iMac? I would like to expand the ports on my iMac but don't want to fry the computer if power is coming down that input.
I was interested till I read it was 60W. Only found one that looks like it supports the full 96W the 2019 MBP 16" I have for work has. I bought a Samsung 34" monitor that gives out 85W which is holding me over for now. This would work for the M1 MBA I just bought haha.
@@chicagobob It's the Samsung C34J791 which does have TB, but only puts out 85W. So far that's enough and haven't noticed any slow charging and leave that MBP plugged in there all the time since it's my work one. The Plugable TBT3-UDZ is the only dock I know of that outputs at the full 96W the 16" MBP charger gives.
Does those usb c outs can be used to transfer video out of a video switcher to this hub and then those usb c outs to computer for recording and streaming on separator computer from each usb c out?
I have a stupid question. Since I’ve been researching this. I have an older Mac Pro, it doesn’t have Thunderbolt, can I use this to run Universal Audio products?
Nice video but I don't see how you can use 2 Monitors with this (bc it doesn't support DisplayLink). But if really possible would love to know how you did this
I bought this and had some issues.i am running the hub into a 2018,3 iMac. Connected to it are 2 SanDisk 2tb sse and 1 Samsung Evo 1tb. Routinely the evo shuts down without notice. It seems quite unstable. This ssd was originally sent to me by spitfire BBC pro. I offloaded the BBC to one of the SanDisk and trashed the BBC off of it. I uploaded my projects ssd on to it. It's only taking half of the SSD space. Before uploading i tried to reformat the Evo but it wouldn't let me. It said some sort of Kernal issue. Yesterday all the disks disengaged. So long story not so short I am thinking if this continues i may have to send it back. Any thoughts?
Quick question. If I wish to extend the main computer screen to two others via thunderbolt, do I need this dongle to ALSO have external power ie it needs the power adapter attached or will it work without it receiving external power ie directly off of the computer thunderbolt connection only ?
I have Macbook air 2020, with CPU M1, which has 2 thunderbolt 4 on the side of it. I also have 2 WD external hard drives (Thunderbolt 3) that work fine with Macbook Pro 2016, but they not work when I plug them into my new Macbook Air. Is this hub will work OK if I buy it? Where can I buy one? Thank you so much.
Hey, does the thunderbolt 4 ports on it all support USB 3.2 Gen2x2? Because all of my external SDDs are in USB3.2, don't know if I can buy this for all the external SSDs because I'm running out of ports on new MBP 2021 ^ ^
I believe it might depend on the host system. To the best of my knowledge the Macs do not support 2x2 even on their internal ports as support for that standard is optional per Thunderbolt specs.
@@LonSeidman Well I guess maybe it's because the M1 MAX's bandwidth is running out. Alright, but can it runs on normal USB 3.2 or 3.1 standard(10Gbps) along with M1 MAX? I reckon I dont really need that fast with SSDs
Thanks for the video. Funny but one thing I like besides the good info is the lack of common jargon. I hate hearing lets get started or without further ado, etc.we have become a sheep society where everyone looks and sounds the same
Intel have opened up Thunderbolt Tech to anyone that wishes to do so. DisplayPort 2.0 and USB4 are both based on Thunderbolt 3 spec. What the reviewer failed to mention is that this is not just a Thunderbolt 4 Hub but also a USB4 Hub. It will have the same functionality whether plugged into a USB4 Host or a Thunderbolt 4 Host.
@J Fz VESA used Thunderbolt 3 to implement DsiplayPort 2.0. USB-IF used Thunderbolt 3 to implement USB4. They have Intel to thank for that. Thunderbolt 4 takes the confusion away completely.
