Expanding Mac mini M4 storage with the Beelink Mate Mini Dock (Thunderbolt 5): A hands-on test | Infinium-tech

The Mac Mini McOS is a Go-to desktop for users, and there is a good reason for it. It is powerful, thanks to the M4 processor (and earlier M1 and M2), it is also cool and efficient due to the same silicone and its clever software adaptation. But most of the most, this is because it is Apple’s most affordable computer, which starts from just € 699/£ 599/INR 59,900.

This base value, however, comes with a huge warning – on -board storage is an average 256GB. And unlike other computers, you can not only upgrade yourself. By purchasing a 512GB version from Apple, you will cost you $ 200/€ 250 more, which is a significant price increase for just 256GB more storage.

Here is that a storage dock for Mac Mini comes in the game – it not only expands the ports on Mac Mini, but also allows you to add SSD storage to the system, and in this process, it also looks good.

Today, we have such a dock Belink For testing – this is a suitable name, Met miniSo is it standing in the sea of Mac Mini Dock?

Met Mini Dock

Well, for the beginning, the Met Mini Thunderbolt 5 from Belink, meaning that it has an 80 GBPS bandwidth, which raises it above your dime-e-pain 10 GBPS dock on Amazon. The added bandwidth opens the capacity of the external equipment of the dock for your Mac mini – essentially, you have more bandwidth to run items on it – an external monitor, external storage, etc.

The Belink Met Mini comes in two configurations – Met Mini A, which has two m.2 2280 pcie slots with two lanes (X2), in total for 16TB, or the Met Mini B, which has a single M.2280 pcie flat with a four lane (x4).

Met mini a Read and write speeds up to 3,600MB/s and 3,400MB/s, and Met mini be Up to 7,000MB/s and up to 5,000MB/s respectively.

We have a model with two m.2 slots (A). At the time of this article, its cost is $ 139 (without SSD), $ 279 with 2 TB important SSD, and $ 460 with 4TB important unit. Belink website,

Port-SD, 2x USB-A, Ethernet, 3.5 mm, 2x USB-C

Let’s talk about I/O. You have a SD 4.0 (UHS-II) card slot with maximum reed speed of 312MB/s. There is a power indicator light in front. In the rear, a USB-A 3.0 port (5GBPS), a 2.5GBPS Ethernet port, another USB-A 3.0 port, a 3.5 mm audio jack, a Thunderbolt 5 USB-C port (80GBPS), and another USB-C is used for power supply. This final use is made when you are peripheral connected that exceeds 15W power.

There is an active cooling fan made in a mate mini and a heat sink. During our test, we cannot say that we ever heard the fan working – it is quiet.

A perfect match for Mac Mini

The Belink Ship is designed to connect the USB-C cables from the USB-C with the two Thunderbolt 5-C. One is to connect the dock when placed under a Mac mini, and the other is when you have a desktop under the dock. There are easy instructions on cables to avoid confusion.

Can go down, or on top

To install an M.2 SSD, you have to open the Met Mini Dock. You will need some basic electronic tools for that, but will trick any € 10 toolkit on Amazon.

First, remove the stick-on rubber legs. Below are two Philips head screws; Remove them and you are inside.

Then, you have one and four screws to get access to two SSD slots. Each SSD slot has its own small screw to fix SSD.

Belink Met Mini Opening

We have ssd this 500GB Samsung 970 EVO PCI Gen 3.0 x4 for a while and are using it as an external drive for Mac Mini in the USB-C enclosure. But now that we have Belink Met Mini Dock, we felt that we can install it and see if it is fast.

PCIE GEN 3.0 x4 SSD is capable of reading/writing speeds, 3,400/2,500 mb/s, but the USB 3.2 was obstructed by the attachment, which was only 5GBPS. Putting SSD into 80GBPS dock should make it slightly faster.

And in fact, if you look at us before and after the test, 970 EVOs have a significant reading speed when tested inside the dock. It is about 40% faster. H.265 4K videos write and read, which is mostly used for this SSD, is about 40% faster.

You can probably gain even more speed with Met Mini B, with a single M.2 2280 pcie slot with four lanes (X4). However, any storage upgrade from there will need to replace SSD with a new instead of adding only each other. So you lose a bit of practicality for possible high storage speeds.

SSD in left – USB attachment; Right – Inside SSD Dock

The other advantage of using SSD in an actively cooling dock instead of the USB-C enclosure is continuous performance. SSD can actually be really warm inside the enclosure under the load for a long time. Here, we will have peace to know that it is cool properly.

Decision

Belink Met Mini seems like a great match for Mac Mini Design-War. This not only allows you to expand the available storage flexible, but it also adds several ports and even a card reader to the system.

Since Apple will charge you a $ 200/€ 250 fee for the 512GB version of Mac Mini, it seems that the smart move is just to get the base version and upgrade the storage through a dock in this way, so it is worth recommending.

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