Review on 💻 StarTech.com Thunderbolt Docking Station: The Ultimate Laptop Dock with TB Cable - MacBook Thunderbolt Dock by Djmikis Parker

I use this dock with Mac rMBP, OS 10.9.4, LaCie Big 5 and LG monitor with Displayport. The performance is impressive and equals or exceeds the rMBP USB3. The dock warms up closer to the top, but not hot. I ended up installing it as pictured and the included base is well weighted. When this dock is first in the TB chain, followed by the LaCie Disk Enclosure, and then the DisplayPort monitor, everything works fine. Mix things up and there are sleep problems. Documentation and online information clearly indicates monitor support, while this may not previously have been obvious to the average user. It supports dual monitors, but only if one monitor is Thunderbolt and the other is HDMI. I need more than 3 USB ports so I plugged my old spare 7 port USB 3 hub into one of the Startech ports and everything seems to be working fine. I have a USB3 disk enclosure on both Startech and one of the hubs and the disk tests are pretty much the same as before (the USB hub is connected to the rMBP USB port). I connected a USB3 portable SSD to Startech's third port and the docking station powers it with no problem. My other drives are self-powered. Usually the USB3 chipset has 4 ports, like the one Startech uses, but one of the ports is used for audio. For rMBP, it looks like a USB audio device. I would have liked to have added another USB port, but then it's nice to be able to control the volume from the keyboard. It looks premium and comes with a TB cable as well as three different AC power cords. The TB cable is a bit short, but the power cables are much longer than usual. Makes no sound. When waking up or turning on, I hear a faint click from the audio amplifier I have connected. The click is expected, but it's much smaller than the others. not intrusive. The power adapter is almost the size of a docking station and stays relatively cool. Hopefully this will be a long lasting product, so far so good.