Hello everyone,

Can you please share your experience with usb C, usb A, thunderbolt 1,2,3,4,5 hubs and dock stations?

Are there any issues connecting your old external storage devices, midi devices, interfaces?

I’m thinking about buying Mac mini m4 pro but hesitant because of the limited ports.

What dock/hub do you recommend?

thank you.

 

How much stuff do you actually have to connect, and how do you have them connected now?

 

Hubs are okay for non-critical connections like mouse, keyboard, etc... Depending on how many connection points and what is being connected, you could spend $150 U.S. to $500 U.S. on average.

A few starting points:
Hagibis Mac Mini M4 Hub & Stand with SSD Enclosure, 3 in 1 USB Type-C Docking Station with M.2 NVMe SSD Case, 10Gbps USB3.2 Gen2, SD4.0, TF4.0, 5V/2A Power Supply for M4 Pro (MC60)

iVANKY FusionDock Max 1 Dual Thunderbolt 4 Chips, 20-in-1 Quad 6K@60Hz Monitor MacBook Docking Station, 40Gbps Dock for Mac M1/M2/M3/M4 Pro/Max, 2HDMI 2.0, 96W PD, 10Gbps USB, 2.5 GbE, SD/TF 4.0

Saved search:
high speed dock for mac mini m4 pro

iVANKY FusionDock video:

 

I have an interface, external monitor(45inch the), midi keyboard, 2 external hd, a trackball ️ wired mouse. I also have an older iMac that I’ll try to use in Target Mode disk as an external storage (4tb of Kontakt libraries and old files.

Mac mini m4 has only 1 hdmi, usb c 4,5 ports that’s why I’m asking about hubs that have usb A ports. Searching online, I found many people complaining about disconnects issues especially when the Mac mini goes into sleep mode.

 

Oh wow

Some docks cost as much as the base model Mac mini m4. I’m trying to minimize the wallet damage

Thank you for the links.

 

Your setup sounds like an average amount of stuff for someone doing audio. You can disable sleep mode, that's a non issue. It would be better if your trackball mouse was bluetooth, as with your keyboard so they do not use up any ports. Having lag through a hub for keyboard and mouse can get really annoying, if present. Latency on typing, really sucks.


You can use your older machine in target mode if you want, but I would really consider getting the Mini with an ethernet port. You can have the second machine connected via a network cable and use it with Audiogridder as a DSP host so you have even more cpu for your plugins. You can have different OS on them, which will allow you to even have different plugins. Depending on what your older Mac is running. You could have Intel and Apple Silicon, or maybe even 32bit and 64 bit. Using the second machine in target mode is just a big external drive, but it also takes up a port at either the computer or your hub. Get the mini with the ethernet option, if you ask me. Many hubs also have ethernet ports, but that can get a little more tricky to identify what will work and what won't.

I'm not using a Mini, but connectivity alone wouldn't convince me I would need to spend another 1000 bucks for a Studio over it.

You should definitely plan on buying a hub. Do your research, because you can easily spend like $200 when you could be more careful and spend $100 instead...just example, but not hyperbole.

 

Last edited: Feb 25, 2025

Recently less expensive options have become available for minimum feature docks. Usually lacking options for SSD and being limited to 1 HDMI @60Hz as an example.

 

Thank you for the informative response and suggestions. Didn’t know that Target Disk mode works using Ethernet

thanks again

 

I found few around $100 that have SSD options which’s reasonable I think. Will see how it goes.

thank you again

 

I used a Qwiizlab UH25 with my M1 Mini. Then I upgraded to an M4 and wrote to Qwiizlab to see if they thought the hub would work. They said yes. So, I have used it with my M4 with no problems. Quiizlab still has some left, I think, for $70.

 

I am in the same boat, I asked my son that gigs on cruisers to get me an M4 mini, didnt wanted to burden him with nothing else like hubs, nvme carry cases, etc , but I knew I would be faced with some trouble building this set to a basic production station.
Any info on this would be greatly appreciated, I have a workmate here doing mastering with an M2Pro mini, told me he manages with a 5 port hub, Ill have to get detailed info on that.

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2025

Found Qwiizlab UH25 Pro on the local market place, usd 200, advantages of living on the other side of the world...

 

plop

 

Last edited: Feb 28, 2025

I think you misunderstood my post. I was suggesting you get the mini with the ethernet port so you can run a cable from your old mac to the new mini. You can run Audiogridder Server and Plugin. The Server would be installed on one machine, and the plugin loaded into your DAW.
The plugin instance in your DAW would be running on the old mac, and therefore using not only it's disks for storage of Kontakt libraries, but actually running a Kontakt using it's RAM and CPU as well.

The RAM in the mini is probably sufficient if you get 24gb stock option, but that is cutting it somewhat close. The more commonly considered "minimum" for a machine doing audio work is 32gb. But Mac charge an exorbitant price for adding more RAM to the Mini. At one point when they were first released, you could get 1 Mini with 16gb, and 2 Minis with 8gb for virtually the same price.

All of these considerations only matter or not, depending on the size of your normal sessions anyway.
Or if you wanted to run Windows via Boot Camp if it is old enough OS, or Parallels Desktop. Then you would have access to both platforms of apps and plugins.

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2025

You could do that connection with Vienna Ensemble Pro, we use that at the 2 studios where I engineer, 2 mac servers and two windows machines as vep slaves, all libraries in the win gear. Mac with the master daw (DP + Protools),
I might be doing that at home, with the new M4 mini so I kinda get rid of the trouble solving nvme or/and ssd hubs, and a waste of big bucks, at least where I live. I have a Hackintosh + Windows machine which I am using actually, about 3TB of libraries in it.

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2025

I found this and it looks promising. I watched few reviews explaining the speed, setup, internet interference…etc. Cost $80 with the coupon.

https://a.co/d/3Jmxqxg

 

I, indeed, misunderstood your post

I’ve always wanted to try some plugins that were released for windows only like the latest Softube plugins. This finally will be possible.

I really appreciate the further explanation

My older iMac is an intel quad core i7 3.5 ghz with 32 gb of ram. I ordered the Mac mini m4 pro that comes with 24gb of unified memory/ram.

 

This is really awesome. It’s a blessing to be able to use both Mac and windows in combination.

 

I just got that same iMac 21.5" 32gb, for $100 because it was "dead", but easily repaired. I have a 2107 macbook pro and the extra 16gb RAM in the iMac makes a noticeable difference. But my DAW computer is still my 5,1 Pro.

You will be able to run Windows 10 on it via Bootcamp. Don't go to Win11. You can get a nice "lite" Windows recommendation on here if you look. Or you can just use Parallels Desktop as a VM. You will basically just be hosting the plugins using an i7 cpu to power them. That will be really nice. You might want to downgrade the OS, depending on what you have currently installed. But you can run anything from probably High Sierra up to Monterrey, before Bootcamp may not be your best option anymore. I'd probably just leave it how you have it and use Parallels.
You can also use the Mac version of Audiogridder, so it can even supply cpu, RAM, and another SSD for mac based plugins.

There is a list of many Windows plugins which you will be able to run, or not. It's good to at least start with a few that you already know should work, so the actual setup is predictable. You just need a cat5e ethernet cable between them, but if you were going to connect the Mini to internet via ethernet, you can get a cheap gigabit ethernet switch for under $100.

lmk if you need any help with it.

 

I have this for basic USB stuff, even my MOTU M2 is connected to this:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0C9HRJHT4?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

So you need:

5 USB
1 Thunderbolt/displayport

no need for and expensive dock imo