Preface Since the launch of the M1 chip version of Mac mini last year, many people around us have decided to buy it, but my friends have also encountered a big problem: the interface is reduced.

Preface

Since the launch of the M1 chip version of Mac mini last year, many people around us have decided to buy it, but my friends have also encountered a big problem: the interface is reduced. In addition, in order to design a more thin body, more and more laptops have eliminated many traditional interfaces, such as USB-A interface, RJ45 network cable interface, SD card reader, HDMI interface, etc., instead, the Type-C/Thunderbolt interface equipped with an updated transmission protocol is replaced, which makes it impossible for many external devices of traditional interfaces to be directly used.

During this summer vacation, Apple China official website education store started a new season of back-school welfare activities. At that time, we customized the configuration of Mac Mini M1, 16GB+1TB+10G network port memory combination. Although it comes with USB-A, HDMI interface, and lightning interface, facing the increasing demand for access to external devices, it is obvious that the interface is not enough! Therefore, it is necessary to choose a dock to meet daily office and entertainment needs. Through conversion, you can easily access monitors, mobile hard disks, USB disks, mouse and keyboards and other devices, and at the same time, you must be able to quickly charge your mobile phone.

There are many brands on the market. I still consider big brands. Miscellaneous products are often prone to failure and damage. At the least, they are damaged and unusable, and at the worst, they may burn out the access equipment, so it is better to avoid it. I used Belkin multi-function Type-C docking station before, and its workmanship and quality are really good. After all, it is a brand recommended on Apple's official store, so I still choose Belkin this time to buy a new dock.

Type-C is also what is often called a USB-C interface. Although it looks the same as the lightning interface, the lightning interface speed is also faster than the USB-C interface. The most obvious difference is that we all know the logo next to the USB interface, and the logo of the lightning interface is completely different. It is a lightning. As long as you see it, you will understand that this is a plug-in lightning interface. In order to meet the better transmission rate of the equipment in the future, this time we will consider Belkin's Thunder Docking.

is Belkin's newly launched 12-in-1 multi-function Thunderbolt 4 professional expansion dock (hereinafter referred to as: Belkin's Thunderbolt 4 professional expansion dock). Its biggest feature is that it uses the updated Thunderbolt 4 interface, and it also integrates two major features: storage and expansion, which can well solve the problem of insufficient interfaces for our Mac mini and LG gram laptops.

Design & Details

Belkin Thunderbolt 4 Professional Dock is officially certified by Intel, so the chip used also ensures transmission speed, stability and compatibility. In addition to the dock body, the accessories also have a power adapter that is almost the same size as the dock, which reaches a high-power supply output of 120W, which can provide stable power supply to devices that perform data transmission and video input.

Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional expansion dock is a horizontal styling design, with a matte shell of metal, which can improve heat dissipation performance on the one hand, and avoid sticking fingerprints on the other hand. The simple workmanship is very fine, and the logo of the belkin in the lower left corner of the fuselage is very recognizable.

expansion dock mainly adopts the front + rear panel interface layout design. The front panel is an interface with relatively high frequency: SD 4.0 card reader, 3.5mm audio interface, USB-C 3.1 Gen2 interface (supports 10Gbps transmission, supports 20W PD fast charging, and is compatible with QC4.0), Lightning 4 upstream interface (supports 90W power supply), and the main power switch and power indicator light on the right are. The

SD 4.0 card reader supports UHS-II and has great advantages in transmission reading and writing, especially the high-speed reading and writing performance required by photographers; the USB-C interface is becoming more and more popular, and whether it is a mobile phone digital device or a mobile hard drive, it uses a USB-C interface; the Thunderbolt 4 interface, naturally, needs no more, its performance is stronger than the Thunderbolt 3 interface; it is equipped with a 3.5mm audio interface required by monitoring headphones and microphones.

rear panel is distributed with relatively small plug-in and unplugging interfaces: 2 USB-A 2.0 (480mbps), 2 USB-A 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps), RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port, Thunderbolt 4 downlink interface (8K@30Hz, supports daisy chain function), 2 HDMI interfaces (supports 4K@60Hz), and power interface.

At present, the Thunderbolt interface has developed to 4 generations and has gradually become the mainstream interface. The Thunderbolt interface is used:

• can connect to a display, which can achieve the performance of 4K and 8K display screens;
• can borrow charging ports from other brands, and it is more likely that everyone can use it;
• can be connected to an independent graphics card, and the heat dissipation is not limited by the physical condition of the notebook. As long as the CPU can afford it, it is no problem to eat chicken!
• is faster to access hard disks and more convenient to move hard disks;
• can upgrade to a higher-grade dock, integrating charging, network cable port, usb3.0, sd card, Bluetooth, audio, etc.

The difference between Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 interfaces

Thunderbolt 3: The data transmission rate of 40Gbps, the theoretical value is 4 times that of USB3.2; 4k data is 4096×2160×60Hz x 32-bit color / (1024×1024×1024) = 15.8 Gbps , considering 10% normal loss, there is no problem with an 8K external monitor (the line of Thunderbolt 3 cannot be too long, generally 0.5m is better, it is better to lose quickly)

Thunderbolt 4: still has a speed of 40Gbs, but Thunderbolt 4 is generally independent double ports, while Thunderbolt 3 generally has 2 interfaces that share 1 channel, and the line length can be increased to 2 meters, and the expansion dock can 1 to 4 lightning interfaces. Compared with Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4 must have a charging function.

Usage experience

front panel USB-C 3.1 Gen2 interface bandwidth is 10Gbps. In terms of transmission speed, there is naturally no way to compare with Thunderbolt 4, but it can also meet the transmission needs of daily traditional external devices. This time, we will not test the USB-C 3.1 Gen2 interface, but the Lightning 4 interface.

For testing, I specially bought Green Network's lightning interface solid-state hard disk box to test the read and write performance. To be particularly noted, this NVMe mobile hard disk box officially uses the Thunderbolt 3 interface, with a theoretical transmission speed of 40Gbps. Although it is impossible to test the peak of the Thunderbolt 4 interface, it is several times faster than the solid-state hard disk box using the USB-C interface.

uses TxBench to measure data, and the reading and writing speed is basically maintained at: read 2431MB/s and write 1597MB/s. It should be noted that because the hard disk box is Lightning 3 interface, the read and write rate will be limited by the Lightning 3 hard disk box, and if the Lightning 4 hard disk box is used, it will be faster.

running scores are the running scores, so how about daily use? Next, we will transmit a 74.8G 4K Blu-ray movie test. We often have to wait for about 12 minutes. If it is a fragmented data file, it will be longer. Now we have passed the Solid State Drive Box Test of Thunderbolt 3. When writing to

, you can see from the above figure that the transfer has maintained a stable write state of about 641MB/s before the end, and there is no cliff-dropping speed, which means that when actually writing to the file, it can maintain a relatively stable write speed, and the entire write takes less than 2 minutes. When reading

, it can be seen from the figure above that the reading speed is also maintained at around 1.06GB/s, and the beginning and end are also maintained at a relatively stable speed, without a cliff drop. The entire write takes about 1 minute and 15 seconds, which also shows that the lightning interface on the Belkin Thunder 4 professional expansion dock is very stable.

front panel SD 4.0 card reader test, I used Kingston CANVAS React PLUS 128GB, which is a UHS-II card V90 specification, and its theory reads 300MB/s and writes 260MB/s.

passed the ATTO Disk Benchmark test. Starting from the 64KB file, the performance of the memory card basically reached high-speed transmission, with a reading speed of 235MB/s and a writing speed of 240MB/s. Excluding the differential volatility of the evaluation hardware, the SD 4.0 card reader on the front panel basically meets the UHS-II standard when reading and writing UHS-II cards, because hardware tests on different platforms will be different. The 2 USB-A 2.0 (480mbps) + 2 USB-A 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) on the rear panel of

have no advantages in speed transmission, but it shows strong functionality for desktop peripherals such as external keyboard, mouse, and external sound cards.The humanized distribution design was also mentioned earlier. Designing these four interfaces on the rear panel can avoid obstructing the desktop activity space after the device is connected, and it also allows the rear extension of the cable to be coordinated and beautiful without being messy.

Many ultra-thin laptops have deleted the body network port, and basically tend to wireless WiFi networking. Of course, WiFi connections are naturally not bound by wired, but sometimes the importance of the network port can still be reflected. For example, debugging NAS devices requires wired connection, or the WiFi connection quality is very poor, and wired connection is required and other life scenarios, the RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port equipped with the rear panel is very practical.

Now the Type-C interface equipped with laptops can be charged, and the Thunderbolt 4 interface can also be used for charging, and the performance is very good. Users of Apple laptops who have used the Thunderbolt 4 interface should understand how refreshing it is to use the Thunderbolt 4 interface to charge before the fast charging technology develops.

Belkin Thunderbolt 4 Professional Dock Front Panel Lightning 4 supports 90W. By testing its output voltage detection, it supports 4 fixed voltage levels, namely: 5V/3.0A, 9V/3.0A, 15V/3.0A, 20V/4.50A. The power supply efficiency of the

0W lightning interface is very high, which is enough to replace the 45W DC adapter standard for LG gram laptops. It can be perfectly connected and supports charging of the laptop with one cable. It can also charge my LG gram laptop with 45W fast charging, and it can be directly connected and charged without an adapter, which is very convenient. If you are a user who uses a MacBook laptop, it would be better to use this expansion dock, because now all MacBook series are suitable for 90W gear, and charging and expansion performance can be considered a perfect match.

I usually use daily photography and photo editing, which means connecting the laptop to the monitor, which can achieve multi-screen collaboration assist photo editing. Use the Thunderbolt 4 data cable to connect the Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional expansion dock and the laptop, and then connect it to the monitor with the HDMI data cable, so that multi-screen collaboration can be carried out. It is also often used for daily online office work, and it also displays web pages and Word or other software. To achieve multi-screen collaboration, there is no need to switch screens back and forth, which can maximize work efficiency. In the past, every time I made a data statistics table, I often encountered the need to switch back and forth between the data graph and Excel. Now, different content is displayed directly between the monitor and laptop screens, and inputting data to make reports can also improve high efficiency. The Thunderbolt 4 data cable randomly equipped with

is a full-blood version, supporting 40Gbps full-speed transmission and daisy chain function. When choosing a lightning data cable, you need to pay attention to some relatively long cables. The maximum transmission may be only 20Gbps, so the daisy chain function cannot be realized.

Thunderbolt 4 interface expansion can achieve 40Gbps bandwidth. At this time, installing a Thunderbolt 3-interface mobile hard disk box on the M.2 solid-state hard disk to do video streaming, directly edit RAW photos and 4K videos in the mobile hard disk, and browse/edit/drag the real-time 4K original material without lag and high-definition video output to meet the needs of film and television editing users.

summary

Before using the Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional expansion dock, my office desktop would be filled with various external devices such as cables, chargers, card readers, etc., making the activity space very narrow. After using this dock, these problems have been improved, making the desktop tidy and adding a lot of activity space. I have used ordinary portable docks before. Compared with the Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional docks, a more obvious problem can be found: heating and power supply cannot drive the need for multi-screen collaboration, not to mention video streaming directly editing materials on the mobile hard disk.

Ordinary portable docks are portable, so most ordinary portable docks will control the volume when designing, so that the motherboard has no heat dissipation space, and it is easy to cause huge heat generation in the shell when used. However, for desktop docks such as Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional docks, the difficulty of cooling does not exist. In addition, it is power supply, providing 90W high power, which can meet the current laptop charging needs on the market, and realize that one wire can be connected and charged.Don’t worry, like ordinary portable docks, the power is small and cannot meet the charging needs of laptops while using.

Of course, the value of traditional portable docks cannot be denied. In the daily business trips, portable docks are still very important. However, there is no need to consider portability. Just want a dock that can be fully dealt with at home or in the company. Desktop docks such as Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional docks are still worth considering. Is Belkin Thunderbolt 4 professional expansion dock worth it? For users like me who have many needs for use, it is a very worthwhile product: Thunderbolt 4 interface, support for multi-distance daisy chain connection, 90W high-power charging, high-speed and stable operation, support for SD 4.0 card reader, gigabit network cable interface, etc. It will also be very suitable for some professional creatives, such as photographers, graphic designers, music producers, etc. I hope this sharing will be helpful to my friends.