Sabrent has released a range of Thunderbolt 3 docking devices, the top-end model of which comes with a staggering 16TB of storage.
The DS-SKRT-D16TB Thunderbolt 3 Dual NVMe SSD Docking Station, as it’s officially known, is the real deal: 16TB of NVMe SSD storage, capable of 1.5GB/second transfer speeds alongside two Thunderbolt 3 ports (up to 40GB bandwidth), two USB-A 3.2 and two USB-C 3.2 ports (capable of 10GB bandwidth), and a USB-A 3.0 (capable of 5GB bandwidth).
If that wasn’t enough, you also get DisplayPort 1.4, which supports up to 8K video, alongside a gigabit Ethernet port, SD card slot, and 3.5mm headphone and mic ports.
So what’s the catch?
The only catch is that the 16TB model costs a whopping $2,900, placing it firmly in the category of “pros only”.
Sabrent does offer some more entry-level options: 2TB, costing $550; 4TB, costing $650; and 8TB, costing $1,383. For those in the market, there is only really one option: the ballistic 16TB one.
You might be wondering why, for such a high-end device, the DS-SKRT doesn’t support Thunderbolt 4, the latest standard. The company told PetaPixel that the global chip supply crisis meant getting Thunderbolt 4 chips was impossible.
However, this might not be the biggest deal. Hardware maker Anker explains that Thunderbolt 4 supports 4K to dual monitors or 8K to a single monitor while Thunderbolt 3 is only able to offer 4K to dual monitors or 5K to a single monitor.
Additionally, Thunderbolt 3 supports PCIe transfer speeds of 16Gbps, while Thunderbolt 4 doubles this to to 32Gbps – so only the most pro of pros will mourn the loss of Thunderbolt 4.