ThunderboltDock
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Sonnet Echo 15 Thunderbolt dock piles on 15 ports, optical drive, disk bay for $400
There are Thunderbolt docks, real and ethereal, and then there's this beast from Sonnet: the Echo 15. As implied by the name, it's lavished with 15 ports front and back, including four USB 3.0, two eSATA, two audio in and out, an extra Thunderbolt, GigE and FireWire800 ports. If you're thinking that'll finally let you hook up a Blu-ray or hard disk to your laptop, back up a second -- Sonnet's dock has those items built in as well, giving you SATA III-level disk throughput and freeing up your ports for more interesting peripherals. You'll be able to grab one this summer with a built-in DVD for $399, or configure it to the max with a Blu-ray drive and 2TB HDD for $549 -- assuming it avoids any untoward delays.
Belkin details Thunderbolt Express Dock at CES, shipping this Summer
We first caught a glimpse of Belkin's Thunderbolt Express Dock back at IDF. Here at CES, the company has offered more info on the high-speed peripheral -- including an expected Summer 2012 arrival window. The dock features all sorts of added connection potential: three USB 2.0, two Thunderbolt, one FireWire 800, one HDMI, an Ethernet and a 3.5mm audio jack. Lending a hand to your port-deprived MacBook Air or Ultrabook via Thunderbolt, the peripheral offers the expected bi-directional transfer rates up to 10Gbps while keeping with the Apple color scheme. Pricing details aren't expected until closer to the ship date, but for now, take a look at the design render and PR just past the break. Update: We've just been passed some official images for the Thunderbolt dock. Peep 'em in the gallery below.
Thunderbolt accessories at IDF 2011: Belkin's Express dock, Seagate drives and PCIe expansion cards (video)
Seeing as Wintel fans will soon join in on the Thunderbolt fun, how about a smorgasbord of devices toting the interconnect, conveniently laid out in a two pane vitrine here at IDF? Alongside the usual suspects -- such as LaCie's Little Big Disk, Promise's Pegasus and Sonnet's Echo -- are a few devices we've never seen before, namely Belkin's Express dock, some unnamed Seagate drives and two PCIe expansion chassis from Sonnet and Magma. We're particularly smitten with the latter two -- you know, dreams about extending our future Ultrabooks with some serious external graphics horsepower. Check out the entire spread in our gallery below and the video after the break. Myriam Joire contributed to this report. %Gallery-133792%
