CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt 4 Dock - 18 Ports, 98W Charging, 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 4, USB-A/C, 2.5GbE, 8K/6K Displays, Mac/PC/Chrome Compatible

I’m what is known as a Power User. First let me tell you what I’ve hooked this up to. I recently bought an HP Windows 11 - 17” Laptop. It has 64 Gig of Ram and a 4 TB SSD drive. It comes with 2 USB C Thunderbolt 4 ports (40 Gig). One of them is used for charging the Laptop. It also comes with 3 USB A Ports (10 Gig). Unfortunately it doesn’t come with an Ethernet Port.I bought this incredible Dock for its Ethernet Port and all the other Ports that come with it. It has 3 Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gig) Ports. I use one for charging the Laptop and the other 2 I can use for a lot of other things like copying large SSD Chips etc. it also comes with another 3 USB C Ports (10 Gig each) and 5 USB A Ports (10 Gig each). I can hook up everything I always wanted to this baby!Some people complain that when copying large amounts of data it doesn’t work well. Thats because the people are trying to copy too much at a time and the Chip they are copying to gets overheated. If you copy the correct way you’ll have no problems. I only copy 200 to 300 Gig at a time and then wait awhile for the Chip to cool down before I copy more.Some people complain that their Dock burns out in so many months or a year or so. Thats because they load the Dock with way too many things being used at the same time. Just because it has up to 18 plug-ins doesn’t mean you can use a lot of them always at the same time and not expect the Dock to overheat and eventually burn out. Look at the Specs. It says it can charge up to 98 Watts for your Laptop. The Dock is rated at 240 Watts. In real life it’s only going to be about 200 or so Watts Maximum. So while charging your Laptop you have about 100 Watts left to use for other things that you can plug into the Dock. If the Total of what you are plugging into the Dock goes above 200 or so Watts, then the Dock will start overheating and eventually it will burn out. Common sense right?I’ve bought a few docks in the past that I wasn’t satisfied with. Although this Dock is very pricey it’s worth every cent if you want your Computer to be able to have all the Ports you’ll ever need. It’s almost future proof and is the best one I’ll found so far that is powerful enough to allow you to do anything with your set up! Read the Specs and see if you can find any other Dock that comes close to it!I highly recommend this unit. And btw, if for some reason you get a bad one, just remember that no matter what you buy you could get something once in a blue moon that doesn’t work. Nothing is perfect. When thousands of a product is made there is always going to be a few duds. Simply ask for a working unit from the company. Don’t cry and say “mine was dead on arrival and I will never buy from them again!”. That sounds like a very stupid person saying things like that.Make sure if you use USB C Cables for the Thunderbolt Ports that they are Thunderbolt 4 or 3 Cables rated for 100 to 240 Watts. Anything less and you might as well forget using them as they really won’t work the way they should (up to 40 Gig read and write)If you use USB A Cables, make sure they are at least 3.2 Gen. 2 to get the max out of this Dock (up to 10 Gig read and write). If you use USB C Cables then use Thunderbolt 4 or 3 to get the most out of the Dock (Thunderbolt cables are backwards compatible with all versions of USB C). However you can use any cables you want if you don’t care about using this Dock at its best. But if that’s the case then why bother buying it in the first place!Also remember that those fast speeds also depend on how fast your Computer or Laptop is (and whatever you are plugging into the USB A or USB C or Thunderbolt Ports). If you have an old or slow piece of garbage computer or Laptop, don’t expect this Dock to be able to do miracles.If you want a really great Dock that can do just about everything (see its Specs) then this is the Dock for you!

I initially chose a different brand because the CaliDigital TS4 looked big in the pictures and was considerably more expensive. I wanted something compact to hide it more easily on my shelf. The other brand came in and worked great ...for a day...then it abruptly died. Not wanting to go through that again, I read more reviews and decided to splurge on this one because Apple sells it too (gotta be a player for Apple to sell your stuff for you) and because MacWorld rated it highly. When it arrived, I was surprised it was so small and compact.... like 5 or 6 inches tall...not 8 or 9. I like that I can load the semi-permanent cables into ports in the back. It works great right out of the box. My only dig is that I couldn't get the sound to work through my speakers. All of the troubleshooting advice prioritized cycling power, downloading the right drivers, and making sure I was using the right ports. I use a MacBook...and a Reddit user made it very easy: you need to go into your systems settings > sound > Play sound effects through > [then in dropdown] change from "MacBook Pro Speakers" to TS4 CaliDigit USB speakers. Voila.

Before this beautiful docking station, I didn't realize how helpful a dock could be. I love the design and functionality of the TS4. Everything about it just makes sense. Other products that offer similar features often occupy two Thunderbolt slots, which doesn’t seem logical to me. Some cheaper alternatives have a terrible layout, and again, that doesn’t make sense. This product is none of that. Everything is positioned exactly where it should be: the ports that need to be in the back are at the back, and the ports that should be in the front are in the front! I know, I know…it seems too logical, but its true. This is the best dock that money can buy right now.

ADDENDUM, dated 4/21/2023@19:48 EDT: It WORKS Now on BOTH APPLE Laptop & Desktop=========================================================================WORKS on MacBook Pro 16” 2019 (Intel-chip) & WORKS on iMac 24” 2021 (M1-chip) => Rating of 4 StarsThis addendum, dated 4/21/2023, at 19:48 EDT, corrects my PRIOR negative review. Now, the CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Dock (Model TS4) is working fine on both my Apple laptop and Apple desktop. It now works successfully with all my external hard drives (HDDs), external Solid-State Storage drives (SSDs), my Dell monitor, my Ethernet (wired), and powers the laptop without any problems.The ONLY failure now is that I cannot get my ancient, Anker 13-port, USB2.x, hub to work when plugged into the TS4.My PRIOR negative TS4 review is hereby rescinded. My PRIOR negative rating of it as one (1) star is replaced now with four (4) stars.Here are more details about my recent experiments & testing providing additional details as why my review now is quite positive and I've rated it a lot higher:On Sunday, April 16, and Monday, April 17, I did some more trouble-shooting and experiments to help us debug the problem with the CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt Dock. The problem in a nutshell was that the TS4 FAILED to mount any drives on my Apple MacBook Pro laptop; BUT it worked SUCCESSFULLY on my Apple iMac desktop!During those experiments, I disconnected the TS4 from my laptop and re-connected it to my desktop being sure (like before) that I used CalDigit’s supplied Thunderbolt 4 cable. However, I took it one step at a time.WORKS. First, I tried connecting it to a different Thunderbolt 3 port on a different side (bus) of the laptop AND leaving the laptop’s Apple power-brick still powering the laptop. To my surprise, it SUCCESSFULLY mounted every external hard-drive (HDD) and solid-state storage (SSD) device that I connected it to.WORKS. Second, I re-connected it into the same Thunderbolt 3 port on the laptop that the TS4 originally failed on. Again, to my surprise, it now worked SUCCESSFULLY and mounted every external drive (HDD & SSD) that I connected it to.WORKS. Third, I dis-connected the Apple power-brick from the laptop. So, now the TS4 was providing the power to the laptop. Yet again, to my amazement, the TS4 continued to work SUCCESSFULL and again mounted every external drive (HDD & SSD) that I connected to it.WORKS. Fourth, I connected the monitor to the TS4’s Display Port 1.4 port. Again, to my pleasant surprise, it worked SUCCESSFULLY.WORKS. Fifth, I connected the Ethernet CAT-5 cable into the TS4’s 2.5 gigabit jack. Yet again, to my wonderment, it worked SUCCESSFULLY without any degradation in speed.FAILS. Finally, I did hit a failure (but not a show stopper). I connected my old, Anker USB2 hub (a self-powered hub with some 12 USB ports on it) into a USB port on the TS4. UNFORTUNATELY, it FAILED to recognize and activate the Anker hub. The peripherals connected into the Anker hub were thus rendered useless. So, some other external HDDs did not spin-up/mount; my wired trackball was useless; USB downstream connections to other devices (webcams, amateur radios, etc.) also failed.BOTTOM-LINE: For some unknown and puzzling reason, the CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Dock (TS4) is now working fine on my laptop, EXCEPT for that Anker hub problem.If you have any insight on why the Anker hub is not being recognized, activated when plugged into the TS4, then let me know and we’ll try to resolve this Anker hub issue. Of course, this Anker hub works fine when connected directly to the laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 ports. It even works when connected via an un-powered, Anker 7-in-1 hub. It just will NOT work when cabled into the TS4 dock. By the way, this Anker hub problem cannot be a power one because the 13-port Anker USB2.x hub is self-powered with a beefy Anker power-brick.==================================================================================ORIGINAL Review, dated 4/d?/2023@h?:m? EDT: It FAILED on APPLE Laptop; But WORKED on Desktop===============================================================================Fails on MacBook Pro 16” 2019 (Intel-chip); But Works on iMac 24” 2021 (M1-chip) => Rating of 1 StarI just purchased this CalDigit TS4 hub device. Despite the glowing reviews, I’m very disappointed in its operation so far!🙁. It fails totally when connected to my Apple laptop. Yet, it works superbly when connected to my Apple iMac.FAILS. The TS4 gets a failing grade when connected to my Apple laptop computer (MacBook Pro, 16”, 2019, Intel-chip). It FAILS to mount any of my external drives (HDDs). It intermittently mounts my external SSDs BUT ONLY if I connect them to the TS4’s Thunderbolt ports; they fail to mount when connected to any other ports (USB-c) on the TS4. I only tried one drive an a time to insure they were getting adequate power from the TS4 and still they failed to mount. All these same drives work fine when connected to this laptop using my older, less capable hubs (by Anker); or when directly connected to the laptops ports. These dismal test results were encountered with the TS4 connected to the laptop using the CalDigit-supplied Thunderbolt 4 cable AND the TS4 was providing power to the laptop.WORKS. The TS4 gets a stellar grade when connected to my Apple desktop computer (iMac, 24”, 2021, M1-chip). It SUCCESSFULLY mounts all of those same external drives (HDDs and SSDs). They work whether connected to the TS4’s Thunderbolt or USB-c ports. This superb test results were obtained with the TS4 connected to the desktop using the CalDigit-supplied Thunderbolt 4 cable BUT the TS4 was NOT providing power to the desktop (instead the Apple power-brick was still plugged-into the iMac).I checked the CalDigit firmware on my TS4 and it’s the latest released by them. It’s version 39.1.So, I’m clueless as to why the disparity in my test results to date. If I cannot resolve the TS4’s failure on the laptop, then the TS4 will be returned to Amazon.I plan to do a NVRAM reset on the laptop and re-test the TS4 connected to the laptop. I also plan to test the TS4 again but with the Apple power-brick still connected to the laptop (to see if it’s a power issue).I will also contact CalDigit support.Has anyone else experienced this disparity? Any suggestions?