The BEST Budget USB-C Hub for the Mac Mini! - Expand Storage, SD Card Reader, & More!

After recently swapping from Windows to my 2020 M1 Mac Mini for editing, I needed a dock that could give me more USB ports, read SD cards, and also expand my storage.

I stumbled across this budget one from Amazon and it worked very well for my needs.

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00:00 Introduction
00:45 Unboxing
01:57 Installing the SSD Drive
02:47 Setting Up The Dock
03:37 Setting Up The SSD
06:17 SD Card Reader
06:41 Is This Dock Good?

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Disclaimer: Some of the above links are affiliate links, and I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase. These are all products I have personally tested and highly recommend. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

[dell]

I got one of these in the beginning of December, I put a spare 500GB SSD in it and it works great. The extra ports and SD reader are also very useful.

Good stuff cheap!

[qasdz]

i dont even have a mac mini but this thing is dope as hell

[joshualarson]

Just picked up one for my new Mac Mini M1. Great external storage solution for lower spec mini's or just a clean storage solution. This will be my first Mac Desktop since the eMac if anyone remembers that behemoth. I do a ton of photo and video editing. looking forward to seeing what adobe does for optimization with M1. - Cheers

[StephenOrion]

So, for the cooling fans, I'd personally like to see comparing Macbook pro vs macbook air + cooling fans on a long Cpu intensive application. I'd like to know if the performance is comparable when u add the bottom cooling fan for 30$. I'd like a silent machine for music recording real time but also want the performance to be as close to the Macbook pro as possible without paying 300$ for it.

[Mockedarche_old]

That hub is amazing. I can already imagine how great a 2tb 2.5inch hdd would be in that.

[RetiredandLivingthedream]

just bought this one and waiting for the new Mini release in October. Thanks for the video

[snarkyguy]

Ironically I had just bought this very same dock yesterday BEFORE watching your video. Gives me a lot of confidence.

[rumaru]

It is super useful for anyone besides Mac Mini owners. I wonder if the disk is having bottlenecks over USB 3.1 (5Gbps of bandwidth). I'll keep checking for a future video in which you could test for bottlenecks using a thunderbolt (40gbps) enclosure and a USB 3.1 (5Gbps) enclosure with a very fast SSD drive (Samsung 970 Plus) using the M1. I'm not gonna spend almost $1k for upgrading the hard drive with Apple.
For those of us who produce music, there are lots of plugins that use quite a lot of RAM, but they also offer the option to use less at the expense of having quicker loads from a fast SSD drive. Since RAM upgrades are not an option, an external nvme SSD would be the perfect choice for Hard Drive expansion.

[gntransport]

I've been searching for something like this to use with the mini. I didn't want to invest in the mini until I found external solutions that met my need. This addresses my external needs regarding the mini. Thanks for sharing

[little_astro]

even tho am all the way into the macbook air. the mac mini just looks so fancy and futuristic i love.

[futuresagexxi]

Seemless! Why are you so creative and minimal at the same time? Good Job bro

[SPG]

OMG! This is just what I need if I end up getting a Mac Mini! Thank you!

UPDATE: On my end, it says it won’t be in stock until February, but Satechi has a similar one in stock.

[mlgboy]

I would recommend NVME if you need a faster drive. With a Samsung T7 USB-C on my mac I am getting nearer to 900mb/s read and write. Cheaper than Thunderbolt enclose and drive.

[Ok-kxte]

Mac mini has the greatest potential out of the three in my opinion

[pikaflixproductions]

I went out and got 8tb storage for this thing and it was not working. I could not find out how to get it working. Thank god I found your channel. it works now. Thanks legend. Subscribed. :)

[cyphernada]

I got this one and have a 1.5T ssd installed inside! Speed is dope! Very convinient. It cost me 230 rmb on JD, which is a online store in China.

[KonjikiKonjiki]

Very helpful! The whole Erase and AFPS info was just what I needed. Thanks!

[kaanaslan]

I got a M.2 NVMe SSD with TB3/USB4 enclosure to expand my Mac Mini's internal storage. 250-300 mb/s write-read speeds are 5 to 10 times less than Apple-built SSD.

[dwylhq]

04:57 BlackMagic Design Disk I/O speed test very insightful. Thanks! 🙌

[anthonydiaz]

Love the color difference! It honestly looks very minimal and equally useful for high productivity! Great video!