That’s no Mac mini—it’s Satechi’s wild new Thunderbolt 5 dock

If you’re into the Mac mini aesthetic, Satechi has something for you: a new Thunderbolt 5 dock with the same dimensions as Apple’s mini computer.

The Satechi Thunderbolt 5 CubeDock with SSD Enclosure isn’t cheap. It will retail for $399.99 and ship during the first quarter of 2026, the company said here at CES 2025. Satechi is pairing it with its own $39.99 Thunderbolt 5 Pro cable, which will connect the dock to your laptop.

As the name suggests, the CubeDock includes an M.2 slot for inserting an SSD. (Dock makers have said that this was part of the original Thunderbolt 5 reference design Intel circulated, the reason why many other dock makers have gone this route.)

It can be a real plus, however, as inserting an SSD (which you’ll have to supply) into the slot can offer I/O speeds that an external USB SSD can’t match. (In this case, PCIe 4×4 with up to 8TB of capacity at 6000 MB/s.) Of course, SSD prices continue to head up sharply from where they were in the last weeks of 2025, so it’s not clear whether that SSD will be an investment you’re willing to make.

The other question is whether Thunderbolt 5 will be a viable option, given that it’s not natively supported in the upcoming Intel “Panther Lake” mobile platform or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite. AMD, expected to announce its next “Gorgon Point” processor platform for laptops, hasn’t said either.

Satechi

This would be the second year that Thunderbolt 5 would be left as an additional option for PC laptop makers to add rather than being built in. Thunderbolt 5 takes the 40Gbps of Thunderbolt 3/4 and ups it to 80Gbps, with an option to go to 120Gbps in a single direction under certain circumstances. It’s the future of Thunderbolt laptop docking stations, though Thunderbolt 4 is the key PC technology for now.

Instead, Thunderbolt 5 has been built into the Mac mini and MacBook Pro powered by Apple’s M4 chip, making Satechi’s choice a smart one, aesthetically. Photos of the dock supplied by Satechi show the new CubeDock with roughly the same dimensions as the Mac mini, and with the same silvery color scheme.

Ports sprout from the front and back of Satechi’s dock.

On the front are a 10Gbps USB-A port and a 10Gbps USB-C port, along with UHS-II SD/microSD slots, a headphone jack, and a power button. On the rear are 2.5Gbps Ethernet, a 10Gbps USB-A port, another 10Gbps USB-C port, three Thunderbolt 5 ports, and a fourth Thunderbolt 5 port connect to your laptop.

The rear also includes a Kensington lock and the power port, which accepts 180W and delivers 140W to your notebook and 30W to attached peripherals like smartphones.

Satechi

Each Thunderbolt 5 port (which will require a dongle or adapter if your displays don’t support USB-C or Thunderbolt) can drive three 8K60 displays or three 4K displays at 144Hz.

The bottom of the dock pops off to allow you to insert the SSD. There’s grillwork on the sides and rear of the aluminum chassis to allow for airflow, which is pushed through with an active cooling system.

Satechi

Satechi’s dock isn’t cheap, but Mac vibes rarely are.