Sonnet announced a new SSD dock designed for storage and connectivity. Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock is compatible with M1 Macs, iPad Pros, and PCs. It can also be equipped with 16TB SSD storage.

There are many options for desktop peripherals that increase the usability of Macs and PCs. Sonnet’s Echo Thunderbolt Dock is another solid option, especially if you need to have access to lots of SSD storage.

Sonnet’s dock has two USB Type C ports, one USB Type A port and a Thunderbolt 3 Port. There is a second USB-Type A port, a Thunderbolt 3 port, and a Kensington lock slot on the back.

Sonnet describes the two 40Gbps Thunderbolt ports like this: One port connects to a computer while the other allows the dock to daisy-chain up to five Thunderbolt peripheral devices and a display. Thunderbolt peripheral ports offer 10Gbps USB 2.0 Gen 2 support and up to 15W charging capability.

The USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports can charge up to 7.5Watts and access SSDs at full speed.

The Sonnet Echo can be used as a dock but it is more focused on its storage capacity. It has two M.2 NVMePCIe SSD slots. These interface with the Thunderbolt controller and offer up to 1,500MB/s single speed performance and up to 3,00 MB/s RAID 0, when both ports are used. The SSDs can be accessed as separate drives when not in a RAID 0 setup. This means users don’t have to match capacities if they wish to use one SSD to upgrade to another later.

Sonnet Echo Thunderbolt Dock features active cooling. This design choice will provide better heat sinking and air circulation than other devices such as the Sabrent Thunderbolt Dock, while still maintaining many of its selling points. PetaPixel’s review found that the Sabrent Dock performed admirably under most conditions, but it had some issues working with RAID 0 configurations and showed heat sinking problems.

Sonnet’s solution appears to address both of those issues. Sonnet specifically states that RAID 0 configurations are supported on M1 computers, as well as Windows-based computers.

Sonnet’s Echo uses Thunderbolt 3 just like the Sabrent Dock. Sonnet comes with a Thunderbolt cable to support Thunderbolt’s 40Gbps bandwidth. It is compatible with Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 3 computers. The company also created a video explaining why it uses Thunderbolt 3 in all its products.

Sonnet’s dock does not come with storage, unlike Sabrent’s. Buyers will need to purchase their own. The company published a compatibility chart that shows which SSDs will work with Echo. It also includes the Sabrent 8TB Rocket Q SSDs. The Sonnet Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock costs $350