Alongside Qi2 wireless charging stands, Apple accessory maker Satechi this week unveiled new hubs and charger options for Apple's Mac lineup.
The upgraded Stand & Hub for Mac mini and Mac Studio fits under one of Apple's slim desktop machines, and it includes an NVMe SSD enclosure that supports NVMe and M.2 SATA SSDs. There are USB-C 3.1 and USB-A 3.1 ports for file transfers, with support for speeds up to 10Gb/s.
An SSD added into the hub can be used for Time Machine backups, plus there are also two additional USB-A 3.0 ports, micro/SD card readers, and an audio jack for headphones.
Satechi's Thunderbolt 4 Slim Hub Pro has three Thunderbolt 4 downstream ports that support data transfers at up to 40GB/s, plus it can deliver up to 15W of power to connected peripherals. It supports up to two 4K displays or one 8K display, and it offers 32Gb/s native PCIe support for external GPUs and Thunderbolt-based SSDs.
The 145W USB-C 4-Port GaN Travel Charger has two USB-C 3.1 ports that can provide up to 140W and two USB-C 3.0 ports that can provide up to 45W. The 145W max power is split between devices when more than one device is plugged in, with the charger providing smart power distribution that automatically adjusts wattage for optimal charging.
Thursday August 28, 2025 4:08 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
An iPhone 17 announcement is a dead cert for September 2025 – Apple has already sent out invites for an "Awe dropping" event on Tuesday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The timing follows Apple's trend of introducing new iPhone models annually in the fall.
At the event, Apple is expected to unveil its new-generation iPhone 17, an all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17...
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 series on Tuesday, September 9, and last-minute rumors about the devices continue to surface.
The latest info comes from a leaker known as Majin Bu, who has shared alleged images of Apple's Clear Case for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, or at least replicas.
Image Credit: @MajinBuOfficial
The images show three alleged changes compared to Apple's iP...
Friday August 29, 2025 4:54 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple and Samsung have reportedly issued cease-and-desist notices to Xiaomi in India for an ad campaign that directly compares the rivals' devices to Xiaomi's products. The two companies have threatened the Chinese vendor with legal action, calling the ads "disparaging."
Ads have appeared in local print media and on social media that take pot shots at the competitors' premium offerings. One...
Monday September 1, 2025 4:35 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series this month, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive.
If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming to...
Apple is preparing to release iOS 18.7 for compatible iPhone models, according to evidence of the update in the MacRumors visitor logs.
We expect iOS 18.7 to be released in September, alongside iOS 26. The update will likely include fixes for security vulnerabilities, but little else.
iOS 18.7 will be one of the final updates ever released for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR,...
Ok now... this is a very compelling for those who don't want to pay the Apple premium for upgraded storage. You can get 4TB of excellent speed for 1/5th of Apple's price now.
Why is the stand & hub not Thunderbolt? What's the first thing you want to add to your new mac mini or studio? Well, a studio display, but the *second* thing is fast storage at less than apple's abusive prices, and wouldn't it be nice if it wasn't dangling out of the back in an untidy mess. Like, why would you have an nvme enclosure and cap it at 10GB/s?
In looking at reviews for the previous mini hub, it seemed like people had problems with the hub just not turning on. Anyone here dealt with that? I’m interested in buying one, but want it to work correctly most of the time.
I have the current hub on my Studio M2 and both the SSD and attached USB keys drop off the bus on a regular basis. Pretty annoying, especially since I was using the SSD for media storage during editing. If I knew the issues had been fixed on this version I’d get one to replace it.
Ok now... this is a very compelling for those who don't want to pay the Apple premium for upgraded storage. You can get 4TB of excellent speed for 1/5th of Apple's price now.
That would be better, but would probably double the price - there are stackable thunderbolt options available, eg: (I don't have one, so not a personal recommendation):
https://www.owc.com/solutions/ministack-stx
Thing is, although TB can be much faster in some situations, not every use-case will actually take advantage of that.
Like, why would you have an nvme enclosure and cap it at 10GB/s?
(That would be 10Gb/s - small 'b' or 1.25 GB/s)
Because many people are happy with a cheap, relatively slow (by modern standards) SSD for backup, media library or document storage, and even if you ignore the speed, NVMe is taking over from SATA and offering more bytes-per-buck.
Anyway, most general workloads don't get close to the "peak sustained transfer speed" - and if you're looking to stream raw high-def video or are constantly copying multi-gigabyte datasets then this is not the product for you (and you probably should have got a M2 Pro or a Mac Studio with more TB ports). Even the slowest SSD is night and day c.f. the good old spinning rust hard drives that people are upgrading from.
I think the main "gotcha" with this is not the 10 Gb/s cap on the drive itself, but that everything connected to this hub is sharing the same 5-10Gbps USB 3 stream so if the drive is in constant use and you hang high-bandwidth USB peripherals off it you'll probably see a performance drop. If that's a problem for you then you need an all-thunderbolt solution. Many people won't notice.
That's the problem that Thunderbolt/USB 4 faces - USB 3.1 is "good enough" for the majority of users, so there isn't the critical mass of sales needed to bring down Thunderbolt prices.
The support of NVMe is awesome, but why don't we get extra USB-C ports?! Yes, I know there is one, but we use one to connect it, so there is no gain. Three USB-A ports? I honestly can't recall the last device I bought that uses that and as this is "new", I am very surprised. And I agree with others, for a new product the lack of Thunderbolt is also surprising.
People suggesting "it's a slow 10Gps" (see above, but their website actually states: "Our Stand and Hub for Mac Mini/Studio with NVMe Enclosure also supports M.2 SATA drives across sizes 2242/2260/2280. With transfer speeds of up to 6Gbps, this setup facilitates storage expansion, system upgrades, file backups, data retrieval, and seamless data transfers. It's a plug-and-play solution requiring no additional drivers."
This has just been released and I am already looking forward to the next version so it can get with the current times.
Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.
