Orico did a pretty good job with this station. My biggest complaint is the noise that it makes, but it's not a deal breaker. Having a raid system now and being able to easily control which kind of raid is so nice. I also have a ton of peripherals and things to plug in, so having this is wonderful because it adds so many ports to my Mac Mini. I love that this sits right on top of my computer and fits nicely. This saves space and keeps the desk from looking cluttered. All the jacks for these are snug and secure. Overall, it's a nice design and I'm glad I got it. Read more
The media could not be loaded. I was genuinely looking forward to using this docking station and planned to populate it with two SSDs, but after powering it on I immediately noticed a high-pitched noise that sounds like crickets chirping. The noise is constant, extremely distracting, and completely unacceptable for a product at this price point. After some troubleshooting, I discovered the noise stopped when the USB cable connected to the front port was unplugged. To identify the source, I removed the outer cover and internal plate. It became clear that the sound is coming from the small cooling fan on the circuit board. With the cover removed, the fan quiets down due to better airflow. As soon as either cover is reinstalled, the chirping noise returns. (See photos and video.) For a product costing this much, I should not have to take it apart to diagnose a noise issue. The design flaw is obvious: as the unit warms up, especially if you install two SSDs, the fan spins faster to dissipate heat and the noise becomes even more pronounced. Because of this, I’m shelving the unit and will not trust it with my SSDs installed. My setup is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) environment and the last thing I need is a piece of hardware introducing background noise into my workspace. There’s no point in evaluating the rest of the hub’s features when the unit fails at such a basic level. I’m extremely disappointed that this made it to market in this condition. I cannot recommend this MiniRaid docking station. If this were not a Vine item, it would have been returned immediately. 1 Star Read more
There is a lot to like about this, and it's a really good effort, but there are a couple of things that hold it back from being "great". First the good stuff. The multiple ports both 10Gbs and 5Gbs are a good thing to have and having the 10Gbs ports be one "C" and one "A" is a great touch, so, along with the SD card ports and the HDMI (which I think is a waste of space) port capacity wise, it's well stocked. The 60watt charging port is also a good idea, but I wish it was up front instead of in the back. Supporting two SSD's (NVMe and Sata) is also a really good idea, and the raid is probably also useful for some people, but I would not (personally) raid them because it's too much space to give up. I like that they use the device itself as a heat sync, and the SSD's stay pretty cool, unfortunately, the 10Gbs speed doesn't really allow for them to get that hot anyway. Where i think they missed a good chance here is in several places. 1) there should have been a USB 4 (Thunderbolt) port in, (and out) instead of just 3.2, it would have allowed for much better speed from the NVMe drives, although maybe they expected people to use the M2 SATA drives and not NVMe. It would have also allowed them to put even more ports maybe a display port and faster USB and a faster NIC. 2) The network port at 1Gbs, is really a disappointment. The cost to make it 2.5Gbs would have been trivial and even 5Gbs would probably have been cost effective without adding a lot of heat. 10Gbs would likely have been too hot, but it would still have been nice to have better then 1Gbs. 3) The power "brick" was a missed opportunity. It seems like there is space to have put the power supply into the box, there seems to be a great deal of "empty" space. The SSD's could have been moved more to the side and the power supply would easily have fit with a lot of space left over. If the heat would have been too much, there is even room for a small fan that could have been completely silent. That's probably asking for a lot a the $139 price point, (and there is a $30+ coupon that makes it even lower, but I think they could have made it happen for a least a few of the things I mentioned above. That said, it is a good effort, and it is VERY useful, but you might be better off buying a separate NVMe raid box and Thuderbolt hub, which would likely work out to about the same price, though would probably take more space. The 1Gbs Ethernet port is a clear miss, as is the power "brick", I think they both could have been better for about the same cost. If you decide to buy one of these, I'm sure it will be great for you and it really is worth the cost, especially if you like the MAC-Mini look. Read more
Perfect docking station for my needs. This one device replaces multiple on my desk it not only gives you more ports to plug into but also acts as an external hard drive which is great for me. My computer recognized this device easily so I've had zero problems with its functionality. It also doesn't get hot, which is great because my old docking station did occasionally which was a tad concerning. Overall this is a great item to have and I'm glad I was able to pick it up. Read more
