OWC has released the all-new OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock. Designed by professionals for professionals, the newest addition to OWC’s lineup of connectivity solutions was built from the ground up to meet the rigorous demands of today’s professional video production, image processing, and extreme performance data workflows.
High Bandwidth and Flexibility for Demanding Hi-Res Needs
Pro-level docking stations must be equipped to handle any situation in a production workflow. The OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock is the ultimate on-location, post-production “mission control” solution, with an unrivaled combination of super-fast 10Gb Ethernet, CFast and SD card readers, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, three USB 3.1 ports, and full support for eSATA devices and drives. For maximum efficiency for multiple card transfers, the CFast and SD 4.0 card readers are conveniently accessible on the unit’s front side. And while big on pro-level features, OWC’s new Pro Dock sports a compact footprint roughly the size of a single external drive enclosure.
Extreme Performance and Unprecedented Versatility
With this unique productivity configuration, creators can ingest and work with 4/8K RAW video and RAW photo files immediately at speeds up to 600MB/s. Collaborate in a shared workflow environment via the 10Gb Ethernet port to keep your projects streaming from file setup to final renders with headroom to spare. The new OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock shines with versatility, supporting either one or two 4K monitors, or alternatively one 5K monitor connected to the second Thunderbolt 3 port. Daisy chain up to five additional Thunderbolt devices like studio-level storage, RAID arrays, PCIe expansion, or Thunderbolt displays – all while powering a laptop and managing the typical USB 3.1 devices required to get the job done.
OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock Delivers
- (2) Thunderbolt 3 ports delivering lightning-fast 40Gb/s transfer speeds, with backward compatibility for all Thunderbolt 2 devices
- Blazing media transfer at speeds up to 600MB/s – (1) CFast 2.0 Card Reader and (1) SD 4.0 Card Reader
- Bandwidth to edit from your server – (1) 10Gb Ethernet port
- Power while working – 60W notebook charging
- Connect your peripherals – (3) USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
- See your work – (1) DisplayPort 1.2 port for an additional monitor (up to 4K), or one 5K monitor via Thunderbolt 3 port
- Securely powered – locking power connection
- Multi-bay external drive access – (1) eSATA port with port multiplier support
- Thunderbolt certified for Mac and Windows
“Many of the world’s most talented content creators and producers have been loyal OWC customers for decades because pros know our performance and reliability is simply unmatched, and they won’t settle for second best,” said OWC founder and CEO Larry O’Connor. “We built the new OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock for them, and I am confident it will take their creativity and productivity to the next level in a world where speed, versatility,
Availability
The Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock is available now at MacSales.com and Amazon, MSRP: $339.99.
Needs a TB3 port on the front for ease of hookup to the MBP with short cable.
Also would be great if supported Apple’s last generation Display…
Right now, I have the sharp display hooked direct to MBP and Thunderbolt dock direct on one side of MBP… spare TB3 port on back is for TB3 SDD. Then on other side, I have to use Apple’s adapter to make Apple Display work.
Unlike the Sharp 5k screen, the Apple Display is a full dock in itself. Problem is, I need 3 TB cables to my MBP…
The OWC dock is great, but needs more TB3 ports, at least 3 on the back, and at least 1 on on the front. Many peripherals do not have an extra TB port… so that uses up the Docks second. The 5K Sharp screen does not support daisy chaining either.
Apple Display supports daisy chaining, and is a full dock… it’s just not latest TB… glad Apple is going to produce a display again… third parties have all fallen short.
For USB, it’s nice to have the one on the front for the occasional USB stick… I however also use for charging my magic keyboard and track pad… having two on the front would be nice, but not as important as the extra TB3 ports, two is not enough.
OWC Dock is the best I’ve found, but still falls short because of not recognizing full needs:
3 – TB3 ports on back, 1 – TB3 port on front for a total of 4.
Thanks for the input, Aaron – I’ll definitely pass your thoughts along to our Product Development team! One thing I do know is that configuring the number of various ports and their quantity is much like a shell game. There is only so much throughput supported by Thunderbolt 3, so you can start running into severe performance problems. OWC is actively working on potential solutions for this.
How about putting in NVME Pcie slots (2) and call it a day? I’ll be your first customer.
Thanks for the suggestion – we always love receiving input from our customers. We’ll pass your thoughts along to our Product Development team!
Any chance of CFExpress 2.0/XQD? It’s far more scalable than CFast and is starting to take over in photography and video with Canon and PhaseOne now following Nikon’s lead in switching towards CFExpress. The advantage of 4GB/sec on a four-lane PCIe over SATA600 is pretty compelling in my view for a “pro” product.
We actually have a few products we are working on that may contain CFExpress – thanks for the feedback!
Very excited to hear that CFExpress may be coming to future OWC products… maybe a 2nd gen version of the TB3 Pro dock???
With new high-end cameras (Canon R5!) being announced with CFExpress it’s going to become essential for pro workflows.
A design note for future reference: You could probably have gotten the full power delivery capability of USB3/TB3 if you had used an 8-pin PCIe connector instead of a 6-pin connector. Granted that’d mean needing a beefier power brick, but it’d support more than just “keep the laptop from draining while under load” and actually charge any laptop that uses USB-C power delivery to charge.
Thanks for the comment, Squishy – I’ll pass your thoughts by our development team!
Great, but as said in the comments here:
Video: A Closer Look at the OWC USB-C Travel Dock
https://blog.macsales.com/53412-a-closer-look-at-the-owc-usb-c-travel-dock/comment-page-1/?unapproved=109447&moderation-hash=8cf4dfed6fee0e2ba2160ef498f2b924#comment-109447
Is it possible to build a USB 3.1 Type C Generation 2 (10Gbps) port splitter or multiplier (or hub-dock) with many (say, 10, for instance) of such ports, as there are for USB 3.0 (5 Gbps)? That would be great!
Haha – you are all about the ports! :-)
Are you talking about something like this 10-port hub?
Thanks. Yes, something like that, simpler or more complex. The important thing is to split a single Mac USB 3.1 Type C Generation 2 (10Gbps) port into more than two, so that you gain ports.
Likewise for Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps) ports.
I have not found such splitter or hubs. Not even a male to female Thunderbolt 3 port protector or extension cable.
The company that makes them will make lots of money. We need tons for our University. Pricing is not a problem for us. Are them technically possible or is there any problem, including Intel licensing issues (in the case of Thunderbolt 3)? Can OWC make them?
I had a quick conversation with one of our engineers, and he said that there are too many technical limitations right now as performance degrades dramatically. When he has time, he may put a blog post together to talk more about the science and specifics, perhaps even with some metrics.
Many thanks! Such report would be great. I do appreciate your great support!
I have been thinking about it… You said:
“there are too many technical limitations right now as performance degrades dramatically”.
In such a case, a great and useful workaround would be a hub-dock with multiple ports, but which only allows one, two or whatever limit of connected devices to work at once (concurrently). That could be controlled with manual switches, or automatically, if possible (controlling the number of mounted devices on the Mac desktop).
For instance, 10 devices could be connected all the time, but only one, two or whatever limited mounted concurrently. Once the user unmounts one or more of them, a new one or more can be mounted until reaching the limit of mounted devices.
Such a hub-dock would be great for both USB 3.1 Type-C Generation 2 (10 Gbps) and Thunderbolt 3 external SSD. As far as I know, nobody has made such a product. You will make money!
If possible, I will appreciate if you could forward this information to the product manager. Thanks!
It’s interesting you mention this, as I was actually thinking the exact same thing. If the problem we are trying to solve is the inefficiency of continually plugging and unplugging devices, perhaps manual switches could be a possibility. Or better yet, how about digital switching via software that could run alongside, or even be integrated with, something like the OWC Dock Ejector app?
I will certainly pass along your thoughts!
Great! As said, there is not such a product in the market, as far as I know. You will set a new standard and make money, besides the advertising that will make more people to know about OWC!