Satechi Mac mini M4 Stand & Hub with SSD Enclosure review: more ports and internal storage

Macworld

At a glanceExpert's Rating

Pros

Three USB-A ports and SD card slot at the front

Housing for NVMe SSD

Fits perfectly with the Mac mini M4

Eases access to the mini’s power button

Fair price

Cons

No Thunderbolt speed

SSD not included or available in a bundle

Our Verdict
It’s hard to imagine a more elegant solution for getting more interfaces on the Mac mini M4. The price is reasonable at the price of a compromise in terms of connectivity speed, using 10Gbps USB-C rather than Thunderbolt 4.

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It is probably the most inconspicuous feature of the Satechi Stand & Hub for the Mac mini M4, but perhaps the most useful: the square stand, which exactly matches the new Mac mini M4, has a small recess at the back left, which provides much-needed easy access to the Mac mini M4’s on/off switch.

Apple’s redesign of its small desktop seems to be based on the assumption that it will run permanently and will hardly be switched on manually after the initial setup. Since I started using it at the turn of the year, I’ve occasionally had to switch it off—and each time I’ve been annoyed by having to lift the computer up to switch it on.

But now the M4 Mac mini’s power button is much easier to access. If that were the only improvement, 100 bucks would hardly be justified—but the Satechi Stand & Hub can do much more and, with an additional investment, unfolds even greater potential.

Like its predecessor, which Satechi offered for the Mac mini M1, M2 and M2 Pro, the Stand & Hub brings additional connections to the desktop without a lot of cable clutter. The hub is simply placed under the M4 Mac mini and connected to one of the rear Thunderbolt sockets using the short USB-C cable (USB 3.2 Gen2 with 10Gbps).

One less socket—but four more

The Thunderbolt socket used in this way cannot be returned in the hub, not even as a downgrade to USB 3.2 Gen2, but there are two more ports for USB-C plugs on the front of the Mac mini—which is usually sufficient. These also offer data transfer rates of up to 10Gbps, while the Thunderbolt 4 on the mini’s rear is four times as fast and Thunderbolt 5 on the Pro model even offers up to 120Gbps.

With the Stand & Hub, Satechi primarily wants to enable Mac mini buyers to connect old peripherals with USB-A. Three sockets are available for this—as well as an SD card slot. Two of the USB-A sockets are also designed for 10Gbps speeds, while the third gets by with USB 2’s slow 480Mbps data connection.

Satechi thus solves a problem that Mac mini users in particular have when switching from earlier series, as these still had USB-A ports. Many Mac users have not upgraded every peripheral to USB-C since Apple jumped on the USB-C bandwagon with the MacBook 12-inch in spring 2015. The speeds offered by USB-C and Thunderbolt are not necessary for every type of peripheral.




Typical use case for USB peripherals. But here you can see that ports on the front have their place.Macwelt

I, for example, have an audio interface from M-Audio, for which a USB-A connection is completely sufficient to bring instruments and voices to the Mac. If you want to charge your keyboard, trackpad and mouse on the computer (or even use cable variants), you don’t need a fast cable either. And if you don’t just take photos with your iPhone, you’ll welcome the SD card slot, which is missing on the Mac mini M4, especially as it is located at the front like the one on the Mac Studio.

What I’m not missing: Another audio socket on the back or one or two with USB-A. That’s because I took my active speakers over from the Mac mini (late 2018), which I still plug into the back of the computer—now with the USB-C to audio adapter from Apple.

First world problems, I should think about a different setting. However, I prefer to connect the M-Audio interface to one of the rear sockets again; there are adapter plugs for USB-C to USB-A that are not bulky.

The Satechi Stand & Hub offers another clever extra that will save you money from buying higher-capacity internal storage when buying the Mac mini: a slot for an NVMe SSD. This is discreetly concealed under a flap in the base. Inside, in addition to the PCIe connection, there is also a suitable thermal pad and a small screwdriver with two screws—everything you need for installation.




With tool and spare screwdriver installation is fine.Macwelt

I got myself a 1TB SSD from Kingston, which according to the manufacturer reads up to 6,000 megabytes per second and writes 4,000MBps. In the Satechi case, the speeds are lower: I measure 966MBps read and 847MBps write with Black Magic Speed Test, the results from Aja System Test Lite are consistent at 933MBps and 845MBps.

The reason: The host cable can only handle USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, i.e. 10Gbps, which is 1,250MBps. The data transfer from and to the SSD customized in the housing is therefore close to the theoretical limit, but below it.




Macwelt

According to our tests, the internal SSD of the Mac mini is more than three times as fast. So if you chose an expensive storage upgrade when you bought it, you don’t have to worry. But for those who want or need to save money, the Satechi Stand & Hub offers an elegant alternative. For the price that Apple charges for the upgrade from 512GB to 1TB alone, you not only get the hub, but also a separate 2TB SSD—which, however, has to be purchased separately. Satechi only supplies the housing, not the storage medium.

The slot fitted with an SSD is therefore suitable for storing rarely used data, such as projects for the archive. This solution is also ideal for the music library or films.

Using the solution for the Time Machine backup would certainly have the advantage of having even fewer cables on the desk. However, as backups should be redundant and it is never wrong to use two external drives in constant rotation, this only helps to a certain extent.

There is possibly one more thing to criticize about the Stand & Hub: If one of the rear sockets is already occupied and you want to operate three external displays on the Mac mini M4, the interfaces will be tight. However, Thunderbolt displays themselves have additional ports, so there is no real disadvantage here. The Satechi Stand & Hub is primarily intended for USB-A peripherals and is ideally suited for this purpose.

Price

The price of $100 is more than reasonable, if only for the internal SSD enclosure.

Should you buy the Satechi Stand & Hub with SSD Enclosure?

The Mac mini M4 is a wonderful device. However, if you still use older peripherals or rely on memory cards for photography, you won’t get by without adapters. These tend to clutter up the desk, whereas the Satechi Hub & Stand blends in as harmoniously as Apple users prefer.

It cleverly solves the problem of Apple’s crazily positioned power button and even offers the option of storage expansion. Although this is not as fast as the internal SSD, it is fine for most purposes.