Reviewed: Kanex Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 Adapter . A cheap Thunderbolt USB 3.0 alternative.

The most referring request to my website is a Google search query for a cheap Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 adapter. This comes up in the statistics everyday. I've also read countless forum requests for such a device. Before today, the only option was a Thunderbolt docking station. Thunderbolt docking stations are not portable and they start at $199.

Today, I have the next best thing: The Kanex Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 combo adapter. No, it isn't that simple single Thunderbolt to USB adapter that everyone wants but having the eSATA add-on comes in handy. You can also get a similar device that supports USB 3.0 + Gigabit from Kanex as well.

As you can see, this model has both the blue Superspeed port and eSATA. The construction feels solid. The Thunderbolt end cable is permanently affix;making this officially a dongle. Having the cable permanently built in means you save $40 off the price of cable. However, I do feel the cable should have more girth and thickness.

This is fairly priced at $79. I was hoping for something around $40 but this is the closest thing you will get to a cheap Thunderbolt - USB 3.0 bridge. Is it expensive? I don't think so considering a USB eSATA would cost you $30. I think this matches fairly with those card-bus PCMCIA expresscard USB  3.0 adapters. $79 is also cheaper than the next option up which is $199. Furthermore, you don't have to buy a $40 Thunderbolt cable to use this.

The unit is driverless for  OSX 10.8.4 and above. Windows users can download a driver for Windows 7 and newer. I didn't have a chance to test it with my Windows Thunderbolt PC so I can't comment on Windows functionality.

Here it is in action with a USB 3.0 drive and a eSATA RAID5 attached.

A few important notes:

First it does support full 5.0 Gbps USB 3.0 throughput.
eSATA port also supplies port multiplication. SATA is up to 6G speeds.

Below are screenshots from the system profiler.

And from a 2011 27" iMac with no superspeed USB 3.0 ports.

 Now, with a simple upgraded accessory, other 2011 Thunderbolt Mac owners can have superspeed USB peripherals connected at 5Gbps.

The only negative is that it does not have a Thunderbolt daisy chain port. This will be the last item on your Thunderbolt bus. This isn't a problem for an iMac since it has two ports but I can see where an Air owner would be concerned.

This device is ideally designed for Macs with Thunderbolt produce in 2011 like the 27" iMac that I have. My two other Macbooks have USB 3.0 built in. For newer macs, this is a tougher sell product.

Testing:

I tested this on my 15" Macbook Retina Pro. Since my Macbook has built in USB 3.0, I wanted to see how it compares. I've tried various USB 3.0 sticks and 2.5 inch drives and none of them had any connectivity or bus powering issues. It will definitely power most USB 2.5" external drives. So you don't have to worry about that. It won't, however, power multiple drives due to the power draw.

For my testing, the main things I am looking for are:
USB 3.0 speeds and compatibility.

eSATA speeds.

USB 3.0 Speeds.

Just for point of reference and comparison, I used a Samsung 830 SSD and OYEN USB 3.0 enclosure. I've used this in the past so it is a good reference for my old readers. I tested this with the on-board Macbook's USB and through the Thunderbolt Adapter. Here are the results.

With the KANEX adapter.

Macbook On-board USB 3.0

2011 27" iMac w/ Thunderbolt and the Kanex. Note, the iMac does not have onboard USB 3.0

The results are very close. The Samsung/Oyen is an older drive but the Macbook Pro already has an optimally fast USB 3.0 internal bus so this fares very well. I didn't have any faster drives on hand to see if it could push higher speeds (UASP).

eSATA Notes.

So how does this fair to the Seagate Thunderbolt "hack" solution featured here? Well, it is more elegant. But there are also USB to eSATA dongles out there in the market place.

Last year I tested an USB 3.0 eSATA NewerTech dongle. I tried to compare it to the KANEX but the NewerTech USB 3.0 dongle didn't mount my SANDIGITAL RAID. That particular dongle (and many other USB 3.0 to eSATA) tends to have problems with larger disk arrays.

The KANEX adapter had zero problems. The RAID box was a SansDigital TOWERRAID TR4UTBPN that was reviewed here.

The RAID is a RAID5 4 drive array and here are the results. Considering the eSATA threshold, it did very well giving me in excess of 160 MB/sec writes.

For comparison, last year's review of that box in RAID5 connected to Window's machine directly to an internal eSATA port. There is a bit of a discrepancy compared to the Windows test because the RAID is formatted NTFS which will run slower on a Mac platform.  Furthermore, I had about 3TB filled out of the 9TB.

I would say the results are very close and very good.

The Seagate Thunderbolt "hacked" solution faired a little better and you can read it here: http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.com/2013/11/cheap-thunderbolt-esata-solution.html
However, now, the Seagate is no longer the cheapest solution. This is.


There is a small gripe about the eSATA. However, it isn't the fault of KANEX. I was hoping it had eSATA-P support. Not all eSATA adapters have this so it isn't something to knock a point away. eSATA-P is a dual USB combo port that powers portable eSATA devices. like this below.

With the Kanex adapter, I couldn't power a stand-alone SSD as you see above.

Up close, this is how an eSATA-P port looks like. It is a dual socket that allows you to connect USB or eSATA. It also powers whatever SATA device you connect to it. I think the reason KANEX didn't go for anything like this because 1) I've never seen an eSATA-P with USB 3.0 speeds and 2) Having two USB ports may be too big of a power draw. Thus, the dongle is limited to something like gigabit ethernet or eSATA in addition to the single Superspeed USB port. The other eSATA-P adapters I've seen and used (ExpressCard) had to use an extra USB port to get power.

Update:

The Kanex Adapter does provide booting off eSATA. I've successfully tried it and it works without incident. However, you cannot boot off a USB 3.0 drive. As you can see in the following picture, I was able to boot 10.9.4 off a eSATA SSD enclosure. However, if you plan to do this, you have to be aware of the drive getting ejected if the computer goes to sleep. Thus, adjust your power management settings accordingly if you plan to boot off an external SATA drive.

Note. Booting is YMMV. According to different sources, booting is not officially supported and some have difficulty. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Things to Note.

Again, these are not major faults but some things to address and consider.

You can only connect so many devices. It is only rated to power a certain amount of power as specified by USB specs and how much Thunderbolt can provide. I had mixed results between my Macbook and iMac. Do not to expect to power multiple 2.5" drives off a portable USB 3.0 hub. It can't be done. Now, if you have a powered hub, then it isn't an issue.

Next, the Thunderbolt cable should have been a little bit longer to accomodate the iMac. As you can see in the picture below, the adapter doesn't fully rest to the base of the table.

I also have an issue where an Edimax USB 3.0 802.11 AC adapter will not run on my iMac as it hangs.

However, the USB wifi card runs fine on my two Macbooks. It could be a driver issue so I will look into that. I've tried a USB sound DAC and all other USB 2.0 devices worked without issues.

Conclusion.

So far I like it. Do I have real need for this device when I already have the handy and great Caldigit Thunderbolt dock? Yep, I suppose so. Instead of buying another dock at $200 for work, I can use this where I have a lot of eSATA devices. I'd plug this in at the end of my Thunderbolt chain and plug my powered USB 3.0 hub which has gigabit ethernet built in. I'd still have a single cable connected to my Macbook in most instances.

This also comes in handy for my 27" iMac which doesn't have USB 3.0 but two un-used Thunderbolt ports. I reckon, I'd us the iMac more now.

I can see people opting for the USB 3.0 Plus Gigabit alternative also sold by Kanex. Obviously  I can see the combo USB/Ethernet can be handy for Macbook Air owners I know.

Updated Conclusion:

I thought about this a bit more after I wrote my initial review. Come to think of it, the eSATA is really the key selling point for me. Since I already have USB 3.0 on my newer macs, I don't need the Thunderbolt to USB converter functionality as much as eSATA. The only other Thunderbolt - eSATA is the LaCie which goes for $199 (without Thunderbolt cable).  I also happen to have a few eSATA enclosures that can be put to good use. I can also buy a dual SATA 6 eSATA dual bay enclosure for $80. Then if you add the price of this adapter, you can have a Striped Thunderbolt RAID set-up for under $200. Actually, if Kanex comes out with a Thunderbolt to eSATA + Gigabit adapter for $80, I would immediately pick that up too. However, based on the voice and opinions I read online, I think the this Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 was smart move. I bet this will be a very popular device soon.


Price: $79.99 direct.
Link: http://www.kanexlive.com/thunderbolt-esata

Mele E 2.5 inch USM compatible HDD enclosure

I take a lot of chances with unknown products. I have no hesitation of buying something from mainland China and having it shipped to the US.

Today, I have the Mele E Go USM enclosure. This could possibly be the cheapest USM enclosure out there for use with Thunderbolt.

This thing goes for $16-20 on Ebay, depending on the seller. That is CHEAP!

So what is it? It is a USM (Universal Storage Module) enclosure. It is an standard case designed and promoted by Seagate. It is basically a raw shell with a SATA interface at the bottom that allows it to interchange with different connectors - Firewire, USB 2, USB 3, eSATA, and Thunderbolt. This is the standard used by Seagate's own Go-Flex and Backup Plus line of external hard drives.

If you have the portable 2.5 Seagate Thunderbolt adapter, this slides right into it. Thus making, it one of the cheapest portable Thunderbolt enclosure solutions. $50 for the Thunderbolt sled from Seagate (when it is on sale), $16 for this enclosure and you  are done minus the drive.

There are others who sell USM enclosures like Startech but they're asking $47-50 on Amazon. USM enclosures shouldn't be expensive because it is only a shell with a SATA interface.

Here are the promo shots.

So here is my review.

You buy this for one reason and one reason alone, USM!

If you are invested in USM or want to get into USM, this is the cheapest enclosure you can buy to hookup to Thunderbolt. Hence, this review is all about that purpose and that purpose alone. I bought this to solely use with the portable Seagate Thunderbolt drive adapter.

USB 3.0 performance, I really didn't even bother. But if want to know, it works fine. But if you want to know, the USB 3.0 end piece is a JMcron SATA bridge and post respectable numbers. Using a Crucial M500, 240GB SSD, I was getting 242-250 MB/sec writes and reads.

Now, back to the reason why you get this enclosure.

First and foremost, this thing is really only good for using with SSDs. There is no cushion or padding and I would not use this with a mechanical drive.  You really don't need thunderbolt for 2.5" 5400 or 7200 rpm drives. Since SSDs do not having moving parts, I have no problem using this. If you have a 7.5mm drive, you will need a some spacers or tape it down as it will move. I used a spacer w/ a Crucial M500 and it fits just fine with no wiggle room. This is a tool-less design so you can pop-up drives in and out. However, I doubt the enclosure can handle multiple drive removals because it is pretty thin. You are gonna ignore the easy removable tool-less aspect of this and just have the expectation that you will use this in a permanent enclosed fashion.

I only wanted to test this with Thunderbolt and obviously, this thing is well suited for use with Seagate's portable Thunderbolt adapter.

Here it is with the Seagate Thunderbolt dock. Nice fit. This has to be the cheapest 2.5" Thunderbolt, interchangeable set-up you can buy.

For comparison, here it is next to a standard Seagate USM 2.5 drive. Much smaller but the included USB 3.0 end-piece is much bigger. You can interchange the end pieces with one another because it is just standard SATA.

Firewire 800? Yeah, if you have one of those USM connectors, this works fine as a Firewire 800 drive too.

Pretty cool, huh? Firewire, USB 3.0, Thunderbolt flexibility by just changing the end-piece.

Overall, I like it. It does feel a bit flimsy with cheap plastic but it does the job admirably when used with a SSD drive. The enclosure is very thin if you want something thin and lightweight. Again, I do not want to recommend this for use with a mechanical drive. If you want a cheap and fast way to use SSDs with Thunderbolt, this enclosure along with the Seagate portable Thunderbolt dock is the way to go. It is so cheap ($16 shipped via Ebay), I bought a few. I really don't even care if they break because I can easily just replace them. The enclosure has no moving parts or electronic pieces (besides the throw-away USB 3.0 end dock).

I forgot, the Seagate Thunderbolt dock does SSDs with no problems using this dock. For those curious about benchmarks with the Seagate Thunderbolt + Crucial M500 + Mele, here it is:

Belkin's Thunderbolt Express Dock

Looks like the Caldigit Thunderbolt station is eating away the sales of Thunderbolt docking station as Belkin is shaving the price on their dock. It can be had for $150 today on Amazon.

I still think the Caldigit is a better buy. I might get my work to pony up for one of these Belkin units so I can play with. Maybe a two-way comparison? Caldigit Thunderbolt station vs Belkin's Thunderbolt Express dock?

Cheap Thunderbolt eSATA solution

You can go out and spend $179 on a LaCie eSATA Thunderbolt hub or make your own with various parts for under $55-$100. I was able to jury-rig a $3.50 micro male SATA to eSATA cable with the Seagate Thunderbolt docks to make a working Thunderbolt - eSATA solution.

I used both the STAE129 Desktop Adapter (reviewed here on this blog) and the portable STAE121 Go-Flex adapter (also reviewed here on this blog). Both can be bought, heavily discounted at the Direct Seagate Store. They often go on sale for $50 and $100.

All I needed was a special cable that is $3.50 on Amazon. It is basically a male micro SATA to eSATA cable. In short, a portable set-up can cost as low as $60.

In order to use this, you will need to break the two retaining clips on both sides. It goes in one way since it is a L-shape connector. Since you are using eSATA, you won't need the power from the SATA connector.

Voila. Thats it!

And guess what, OS X reports it as a port multiplier. I don't know if that is true or not but that is what is reported. This means you can hook this up to those cheap $80 4 bay JBOD RAID enclosures.

I connected to both the portable and desktop Seagate Thunderbolt adapters.
Performance wise, you will hit 3 Gbps SATA.

I connected them twice to the SansDigital TOWERRAID TR4UTBPN 4 bay RAID enclosure.

For a 9TB spinning RAID 5, this is not bad. See the benchmark below.

So there you have it. A cheap make-shift solution. I make no guarantees. You can fry something up. If you don't feel safe with this, you can always go and buy the La Cie for $179-199.


Link:
http://www.amazon.com/Micro-SATA-Cables-eSATA-Inches/dp/B002P6W8E8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384560580

CALDIGIT Thunderbolt Station docking review

What is it?

Well, it is one of the few shipping Thunderbolt docks. There are a few on the market, the Matrox and the Belkin but what separates this is the feature-set and price of $199.

It has three SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports, audio I/O, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and dual Thunderbolt. The second Thunderbolt port can be used for daisy chaining. This could be the first device on your chain and you can chain drives and accessories afterwords.

The competition:

Now compared to the Matrox DS1, the Matrox  has only one USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0. It comes in either DVI-D or HDMI. It almost matches the Caldigit but comes short of only one Thunderbolt port. Meaning, it will be the last device on the chain. The Matrox retails for the same $199.

The Belkin Express Dock is a much more expensive affair. About $100 more, it comes with Firewire but lacks a dedicated video out. You can use one of the Thunderbolt ports for video (using a miniDP adapter) but that means, it will be the last device on your Thunderbolt chain.  The question now, is Firewire worth $100 to you while sacrificing a Thunderbolt port for video? I didn't think it was worth it so I ended up with the Caldigit. Moreover, the Belkin caps the USB 3.0 at 2.5 Gbps where as the Caldigit supports the full 5.0 Gbps speed along with UASP.

There is also the Apple Thunderbolt Cinema Display with it's wide array of ports. I already have a 27" monitor so $1000 for a docking station is a bit superfluous.

Usage

With a single Thunderbolt cable, you have a the ability to expand and dock a Macbook Pro/Air with ease and simplicity. The only other cable you need is a power cable and you pretty much have a complete Mac based docking solution. Everything else can be hidden from view. A very elegant solution if you are the type who does not like desk clutter.

Before, I would have something like this on my Retina 15" Macbook. Both sides cluttered with wires. Thunderbolt connected RAID drive, Thunderbolt gigabit, HDMI monitor, USB 3.0 Time machine drive, and a Kanex USB 3.0 hub for extra accessories.

Now, I have this.

Sure my desk is still cluttered but I only have two cables (power and Thunderbolt) coming out of my Macbook Pro. Now, it is just a matter of cable management.

The back USB ports are widely spread apart where you can easily add chunky USB pen drives and other girthy USB devices. This is a big plus in terms of design.

USB 3.0 Speeds

One of the issues with the Belkin Express dock was the fact it dropped USB 3.0 speed to 2.5 Gbps instead of the max theoretical 5 Gbps.  Moreover, the Caldigit dock is advertised as being UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) compliant.

How does it fare?

Surprisingly well! I tested this on my 2013 15" Macbook Pro Retina, 2012 Ivy Bridge 13" Macbook Pro, and late 2011 27 iMac (without USB 3).

An Oyen USB 3.0 enclosure housing a Samsung 830 SSD with ASMedia USB 3.0 chipset (one of the fastest on the market) produced 247 MB/sec writes and 153 MB/sec reads through the Thunderbolt dock connected to my 13" Macbook Pro.

For comparison, the same drive connected directly to the USB 3.0 host of the Macbook Pro 13.

OK, so both my Macbook Pros have USB 3.0. So what is the big deal this dock? The big deal was moving this over to my 2011 iMac which doesn't have USB 3.0. This is a Sandy Bridge iMac with just Thunderbolt.

Here is the iMac using the Caldigit Thunderbolt Station connecting to the same USB 3.0 Oyen drive.

And here is the same drive connected to just the USB 2.0 of the iMac host.

Big Difference!

Synthetic benchmarks are fine but how does this perform in the real world is what matters most. I connected two USB SSD drives (Samsung  256GB 830 and a  240GB 840) both to the Thunderbolt Station connected to the iMac.

The results were surprisingly good. Obviously, there will be some CPU overhead with USB. 20GB of MP4 movies took less than 2 minutes to copy.

On average, I was getting sustained 200-250 MB/sec transfers copies between drives.

On the iMac, it shows up a 5Gbps USB 3.0 controller.

And the proper USB Attach SCSI (UASP) kext do indeed load up when it is connected to an UASP enabled USB drive.

Multiple Displays

This subject seems to bring up some controversies and more questions. First and foremost, this device will only support whatever your GPU supports in term of maximum displays. For example, my Macbook 13" can only support one more external display whether it is HDMI (1080p) or 2560x1440 via Thunderbolt/DisplayPort.

Now when it comes to the 15" Macbook Retina, there is definitely some confusion. Out of the box, it has been stated online, it supports either HDMI or Thunderbolt. I've read that it doesn't support dual HDMI. I'm pretty confused myself with conflicting statements I've been reading.

After various tests, I was able to get 3 to 4 displays running total on a 15" Macbook Pro Retina.
As for three to four  displays, it is possible with a caveat. You either connect to the second Thunderbolt port on the Macbook or use another Thunderbolt device with daisy chain port at the end of your chain.

Sound confused? It is better to illustrate with pictures.

In this picture, I have a 27 inch 2560x1440 Dell with DisplayPort. Next, I have a 23" 1080p HDMI monitor in portrait mode. I am using a SINGLE thunderbolt cable to run both displays connected to the Caldigit Thunderbolt Station. It required another Thunderbolt device in the chain to pull this feat.

In order to get the 27" Display, I used a Seagate Thunderbolt Drive dock, It is connected to the Caldigit at the end of the chain and the Dell is connected via DisplayPort to the Seagate Dock (white cable). I could easily just plug the 27" Dell to my second Thunderbolt port on my Macbook to get the same effect.

Have in mind, the Nvidia GPU GT 650M only has a maximum output of three displays. There is no cajoling this.

Update: After a few reboots, I magically got this to run 4 displays.

The 27" is connected to the second Thunderbolt port off my Macbook. The HDMI off the Caldigit Thunderbolt station is powering the 23" Portrait monitor. My onboard HDMI is powering the 4th display. The 4th monitor is my battery powered portable HDMI GeChic  2501M which only supports 1336x768.

This is strange considering all the documentation I've read stating the Nividia only supporting 3 maximum displays. It doesn't appear the built in INTEL GPU is powering the fourth display. I had to connect both HDMI onboard (and dock) as well as use my 2nd Thunderbolt port.

Judge for yourself.

Here, you can see the System Preference reporting all the displays.

Hence, I think there is some room for the FAQ/Specs to be more clarified. I think your mileage will vary.

Do not expect to connect a 11" Macbook Air and get the same performance as my $3500 loaded 15" Macbook Retina. The number of screens you can connect is dependent on your mac's GPU's capabilities.

Update concerning multiple displays: Please Read Apple's FAQ (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219#dispnum) on number of displays possible given your machine. Again, the CalDigit Station will not output more than what your machine is capable of.

Sound

This dock uses a USB sound DAC. I have nothing to report on this. It works and it appears to be a TI based DAC that supports 2 channels.

Networking

I was a bit worried that the Gigabit may be USB 3.0 driven as well. However, it is good to know it is PCI based.

It does requires drivers for Mountain Lion which I assume is on the CD-ROM supplied. Since my Macbook Retina lacks an optical drive, I downloaded the drivers from the web. Note, the driver is not necessary when running 10.9 Mavericks. In fact, if you are running Mavericks, do not install any drivers.

The Caldigit's Ethernet port is a full 1Gbps true Gigabit network card.

Compared to the Apple Thunderbolt Gigabit adapter, it performs the same.
iPerf reports it hitting the Gigabit limits. Both devices hit 110-112 MB/sec which is the upper threshold of maximum Gigabit throughput after network overhead.

I am more than satisfied with the performance  Time will tell if there are any issues.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a handy device for owners of 2011/2012 Macbook Air owners. Those owners who have a single Thunderbolt port with no USB 3.0 ports. It allows those owners to have instant Gigabit and video with this handy device. Those owners would probably benefit the most from this device. It might be a tougher sell for others. For example, I have a 27" iMac with dual thunderbolt and no USB 3.0. I can't justify the purchase of this for just USB 3.0 on my iMac.


However for my Macbook Pros, I really like the convenience factor. The Caldigit Thunderbolt Station replaces all of these: USB 3.0 hub, HDMI, Ethernet, and sound DAC.

Importantly, I don't have tangling spiderweb of wires and to me, that is what makes this product worth it. Unlike dedicated docking solutions (like the ones found on my Thinkpads), this device won't easily be out-dated. It is not married to a specific computer or device. Future computers will be able to use it as long as Thunderbolt is a viable technology. As you can see below, it clearly help cleans up the clutter.

After cleaning up and better cable management, this is a much cleaner look.

LINK: http://www.caldigit.com/thunderboltstation/