CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 2 Dock Review for Mac and Windows - With 2 eSATA ports, USB 3, HDMI

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If you're looking for a compact thunderbolt dock, this one is it. It's very well designed with a sturdy metal casing and a very small footprint. Out of the five docks I've tested over the last year and a half this one is certainly the nicest from an industrial design standpoint.
The dock has three USB 3.0 ports, a 4k capable HDMI port, two eSATA ports, and leaves an available thunderbolt port for connecting other thunderbolt devices and displays.
It performs like many other docks do - capably but does not live up to the potential bandwidth that Thunderbolt can provide. I was disappointed to see that, like every dock I've tested, the eSATA ports max out at 3 gigabits per second. That's not the individual per-port speed, it's the max speed of the pair. So it's possible to get 3 gigabits per second out of an individual port but not out of each simultaneously. This means that it won't allow high speed SSDs to reach their full bandwidth potential even in a RAID 0 configuration. The same issues can be found on the USB 3 ports.
This is something I've seen on every competing dock out there, including those running with Thunderbolt 2 backbones. I am deducting a star (as I have on other docks) because I'd like to see a dock actually use components that can live up to the true potential of the Thunderbolt technology. Most users will not notice slow performance for transferring files, etc. But power users might.
That complaint out of the way this is a good dock overall. The gigabit ethernet port performs at gigabit speeds and the HDMI port worked with every display I connected to it. The dock springs to life quickly after it's plugged in and it did not require any drivers to get up and running. It's plug and play.
I will say this is probably the best dock I've tested so far. It performs the same as others I've reviewed but the superior form factor and product design sets it apart from the rest.
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DISCLOSURE - CalDigit loaned me an evaluation unit for the purposes of this review.