
Of course, a flash drive will be much slower than an SSD - at least, it would be under ordinary circumstances. You could also just buy one of Satechi’s other hubs (which adds SD and microSD card slots) and a 256GB flash drive, and you’d be pretty close to the price of the USB-C Hybrid Multiport Adapter alone. Sure, you don’t get the option to put a bigger SSD in, but it’s significantly cheaper than Satechi’s option once you factor in the added cost of buying a separate M.2 SSD. There are cheaper and more performant options if all-in-one isn’t an absolute mustįor just $10 more, you can get Anker’s PowerExpand, which includes USB-A ports, an HDMI port, a USB-C PD passthrough, and 256GB of built-in storage. Unless you’ve got one of those floating around, you’re going to have to shell out even more money to make use of this hub’s defining feature. But even at that price, it doesn’t come with an M.2 SSD. The main issue with Satechi’s new hub is the value proposition: at $90, it’s an expensive hub (though I’ve found Satechi’s aluminum designs to be very nice, if that’s the sort of thing you like to spend money on). The hub has a reasonably standard port selection. Then, of course, there’s the M.2 port for adding a SATA SSD of almost any size.


The concept has been done before by lesser-known brands, but if you’re considering it now that Satechi is making one, maybe hold off for just a moment while we break down the caveats and the potentially better options.Īs a hub, it’s pretty standard and unobjectionable: it has 100W USB-C PD passthrough (that will supply your computer with around 85W after it takes the energy it needs to operate), two USB-A 3.0 ports, and an HDMI port capable of driving a 4K screen at 60Hz. It doesn’t come with an SSD, but it does have a catchy name: the Satechi USB-C Hybrid Multiport Adapter. Noted hub-maker Satechi has come out with a new dongle that combines extra ports and a slot for an M.2 SATA SSD for expanding both your computer’s IO and storage while only taking up one of your precious ports.
