Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air

Comments about Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

Got one of these since my MacBook Air has no ethernet and I need to often copy large files to our servers. It worked for a bit and then suddenly the monitor I attached would start to go out (as it did just now while typing this) and the ethernet also stopped working so essentially the reason I bought it was nullified. My friend has one and said his ethernet started to not work too. Not sure what the deal is but working with their customer service on this now... definitely would not recommend this to anyone...

Comments about Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

I had high hopes for this box, and even though the Ethernet, HDMI, (a nice addition that even the upcoming Belkin Thunderbolt Equivalent Box won't have) and USB 2.0 work great, the USB 3.0 is useless. Disks dismount randomly, (if you can even get them to mount in the first place) and there is not enough power for bus-powered drives, which baffles me, since this thing needs to be plugged into the wall and does not get all of its operational power from the Thunderbolt connection.

I've contacted Matrox support personally, and read a lot of other reviews online with people with similar experiences, and according to the Matrox "company line" it's all Apple's fault due to failed software support in OS X.

However you slice it, this box is NOT ready for prime time. Maybe with an upcoming update to Mountain Lion the USB 3.0 will work. Maybe not. A big disappointment from a company I really like.

Comments about Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

This Dock is little bit bigger than I expected from the picture but it does not take too much space on my desk, slightly less then Dlink gigabit switch or router I have next to it. I plugged it into my MacBook Pro 17' 2011 model and connected following: gigabit ethernet, Creative external speakers, 24' HP ZR2440w monitor and monitor's usb hub which has couple more devices connected to it like ipod/iphone dock and canon printer. Everything worked smoothly out of the box. picture is perfect without artifacts. So far docking undocking works smoothly and switch between wireless and wired network takes just couple of seconds, screen switching from multiple monitor to just main display on laptop takes little bit longer then display port to hdmi cable I used before. Only thing I had to setup manually was to switch audio output to go through the docking station using Audio MIDI Setup OSX utility (Dock Audio is displayed as USB Audio Codec). Good thing is that after setting up the audio for the first time os x remembers the settings and correctly switches audio when docking/undocking. Looks like you can also send audio directly to hdmi and monitor speakers if available. My monitor does not have speakers so I was not able to test it. I experienced only one glitch and that when my mac goes to sleep mode, sometimes audio is not recognized while monitor, network and other devices sem to wake up smoothly. Matrox release notes does not mention this as known issue. There is similar known issue with external drives connected to USB3.0 port which does not have to be recognized when system wakes up from sleep I currently do not have any usb 3.0 drive so I can't tell. Fortunately, in both cases easy fix is unplug the dock respective hdd and plug it in again. Regarding the connectivity I would prefer if the dock would have little bit more usb ports as there is only two usb 2.0 and one 3.0 port located at the fron of the dock. Getting Fire Wire 400/800 would be nice as most of my drives I bought over years support FW. Also having thunderbolt port at front is little bit odd and i would actually prefer to have the port in the back or to have two thunderbolt ports, one in front and one preferably on the side as the front located TB cable is sticking out quite a lot and takes up too much space in that position. Having only single TB port means that dock can be placed only at the end of TB daisy chain. I ordered also WD Thunder Bolt drive which has two ports so it should be able daisy chain to docking station. It hasn't arrived yet. I'll see how this will work together.

Ethernet connection through the dock has a separate IP adress as one would expect and is listed as Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot. Speed looks good and having all devices on one cable seem to work without noticeable slowdown I haven't done any exact measurements but networks seem as responsive as when connected directly to mac ethernet port. I was couple of GB of data to the drive from my NAS while connected to dock and and haven't noticed any slowdowns or noticeable hiccups. Throughput looked similar to what i'm used to on direct ethernet connection.

So far I'm pretty happy with this device as it work as advertised and it vas very nice to get rid of the cable clutter on my desk and it is very convenient to have just two cables to dock undock my mac. I gave it 4 stars only because the limited connectivity capabilities which could have been better for the price.

Comments about Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

Got one of these since my MacBook Air has no ethernet and I need to often copy large files to our servers. It worked for a bit and then suddenly the monitor I attached would start to go out (as it did just now while typing this) and the ethernet also stopped working so essentially the reason I bought it was nullified. My friend has one and said his ethernet started to not work too. Not sure what the deal is but working with their customer service on this now... definitely would not recommend this to anyone...

Comments about Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

I had high hopes for this box, and even though the Ethernet, HDMI, (a nice addition that even the upcoming Belkin Thunderbolt Equivalent Box won't have) and USB 2.0 work great, the USB 3.0 is useless. Disks dismount randomly, (if you can even get them to mount in the first place) and there is not enough power for bus-powered drives, which baffles me, since this thing needs to be plugged into the wall and does not get all of its operational power from the Thunderbolt connection.

I've contacted Matrox support personally, and read a lot of other reviews online with people with similar experiences, and according to the Matrox "company line" it's all Apple's fault due to failed software support in OS X.

However you slice it, this box is NOT ready for prime time. Maybe with an upcoming update to Mountain Lion the USB 3.0 will work. Maybe not. A big disappointment from a company I really like.

Comments about Matrox DS1/HDMI Thunderbolt Docking Station for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

This Dock is little bit bigger than I expected from the picture but it does not take too much space on my desk, slightly less then Dlink gigabit switch or router I have next to it. I plugged it into my MacBook Pro 17' 2011 model and connected following: gigabit ethernet, Creative external speakers, 24' HP ZR2440w monitor and monitor's usb hub which has couple more devices connected to it like ipod/iphone dock and canon printer. Everything worked smoothly out of the box. picture is perfect without artifacts. So far docking undocking works smoothly and switch between wireless and wired network takes just couple of seconds, screen switching from multiple monitor to just main display on laptop takes little bit longer then display port to hdmi cable I used before. Only thing I had to setup manually was to switch audio output to go through the docking station using Audio MIDI Setup OSX utility (Dock Audio is displayed as USB Audio Codec). Good thing is that after setting up the audio for the first time os x remembers the settings and correctly switches audio when docking/undocking. Looks like you can also send audio directly to hdmi and monitor speakers if available. My monitor does not have speakers so I was not able to test it. I experienced only one glitch and that when my mac goes to sleep mode, sometimes audio is not recognized while monitor, network and other devices sem to wake up smoothly. Matrox release notes does not mention this as known issue. There is similar known issue with external drives connected to USB3.0 port which does not have to be recognized when system wakes up from sleep I currently do not have any usb 3.0 drive so I can't tell. Fortunately, in both cases easy fix is unplug the dock respective hdd and plug it in again. Regarding the connectivity I would prefer if the dock would have little bit more usb ports as there is only two usb 2.0 and one 3.0 port located at the fron of the dock. Getting Fire Wire 400/800 would be nice as most of my drives I bought over years support FW. Also having thunderbolt port at front is little bit odd and i would actually prefer to have the port in the back or to have two thunderbolt ports, one in front and one preferably on the side as the front located TB cable is sticking out quite a lot and takes up too much space in that position. Having only single TB port means that dock can be placed only at the end of TB daisy chain. I ordered also WD Thunder Bolt drive which has two ports so it should be able daisy chain to docking station. It hasn't arrived yet. I'll see how this will work together.

Ethernet connection through the dock has a separate IP adress as one would expect and is listed as Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot. Speed looks good and having all devices on one cable seem to work without noticeable slowdown I haven't done any exact measurements but networks seem as responsive as when connected directly to mac ethernet port. I was couple of GB of data to the drive from my NAS while connected to dock and and haven't noticed any slowdowns or noticeable hiccups. Throughput looked similar to what i'm used to on direct ethernet connection.

So far I'm pretty happy with this device as it work as advertised and it vas very nice to get rid of the cable clutter on my desk and it is very convenient to have just two cables to dock undock my mac. I gave it 4 stars only because the limited connectivity capabilities which could have been better for the price.