I have my Stream Deck Mk.2 plugged into my CalDigit TB Elements dock and have had zero issues.
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I decided I couldn’t wait for the TS5 dock, purchased the TS4 Pro from Apple (with a nice EPP discount), and I’m now wondering why I didn’t purchase one of these years ago.
No comparison to my OWC TB3 dock in terms of stability and just works.
That constant “will it work” every single time I plug in my MacBook Pro has not totally gone.
Not to mention my two 4k monitors start working at least 5 seconds sooner, and 100% of the time.
I’m thinking of purchasing an CalDigit TS5 or TS5 Plus as an upgrade to my OWC Thunderbolt 4 Dock.
The Anker Prime TB5 has also caught my attention. Among other things, I like that it has a built-in power supply (i.e. no external charging brick). Does anyone have experence with this dock?
I had to wait for a really long time before the CalDigit TS5 plus was on sale here. But now I have one sitting on my desk, so far so good
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Did you end up getting the Anker one? I’m curious if it’s bigger or smaller than a Mac mini 
No, I was actually going to buy it since it was available, but before clicking the button I took a final look at CalDigits site (I had been checking it for 5-6-7 months??) and to my surprise it was listed as available in the EU. I went with the CalDigit TS5+ instead.
Still looking for some sort of docking station that offers 10 USB-A ports for both data and power and 5 USB-C ports that are also power plus data
I don’t care about a lot of the other stuff like extra display ports or SD card slots or Ethernet connections. I just need lots of USB connections and most of the need to be USB-A
I’m sticking with my OWC dock for now. I’ll likely hold off on any hub purchases until Apple releases the next generation of the Studio Display. The hub in that monitor combined with my existing hardware may be more than enough for my needs.
My gut feeling is that your choices are either daisy chaining old school style simple USB hubs, or getting something Thunderbolt based and just accepting that it comes with a bunch of extra display outputs and upfront cost that you’ll never get benefit from.
My wallet doesn’t like it, but having upgraded to Thunderbolt I finally have devices that don’t randomly disconnect. Begrudgingly worth it in my opinion.
If I could get all the USB ports I need I wouldn’t mind the extra money for a nice Thunderbolt dvice but I have yet to find ANY dock that provide 15 USB ports.
yes, fair call. I guess I’m thinking of using that as the first dock, then adding basic USB hubs to it. Not perfect, but probably more reliable than nested basic USB hubs
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For my previous setup I used a 12 USB-A dock, not very high quality but it worked - mostly - for the stuff I needed it for. My experience is that find USB-A docks with many ports that uses an old USB-standard is fairly easy, finding docks with many USB-C ports is really difficult, especially if you want high speed transfer and not just for power. The number of ports seem to max out at three when I was looking.
I never managed to find a dock with many USB-A high speed ports + 5 USB-C ports.
I had a load of USB A devices I had on an Anker USB 3 hub daisy chained to another hub. I’ve since consolidated devices and switched to BT where I could and now run everything including external monitor, Ethernet, and charging through my caldigit TS3+ to my M1 16” MBP. Loving that one cable life! I have no want for any additional speed so I personally won’t be getting a new dock anytime soon. The SSDs I have attached move my data plenty fast for my needs.