Satechi Type-C M1 Mac Mini Hub Review
I LOVE my M1 Mac Mini.
It was released at the tail end of 2020 and was one of the first Macs to feature Apple’s own in house Apple Silicon SOC.
It excels at everything from music production and video editing to media consumption, Photoshop, web design and even gaming.
It’s Perfect. Almost.
There are only really two issues I have with my M1 Mac Mini. Port selection and storage.
And that’s where the Satechi Type C hub comes in.
But before I take a closer look at it, let me tell you WHY I bought it.
“I’ve managed to vastly expand my port selection and triple my existing storage capacity for under £200 all in!”
Why Buy A Mac Mini Hub?
The M1 Mac Mini does offer a fairly decent selection I/O options out of the box. You’ve got an ethernet port, two Thunderbolt/USB C ports, a HDMI port, two USB A ports and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
The problems here for me is that there just aren’t enough of them. As I use external cameras to create video content for this website, the lack of an SD card slot means I need to use a dongle to get footage onto the Mac itself.
Also – and I realise that this is very much a ME problem and won’t necessarily be an issue for everyone – the fact that all ports are on the back of the Mac Mini is a pain. Having to perform a reach around on my Mac every time I want to connect or disconnect something is incredibly frustrating.
And when it comes to storage, I just din’t get enough when I bought the Mac Mini.
I specced out my model with 16GB of Ram and 512GB of storage. 512gb of storage was fine to begin with, but filled up quickly. I really wish i’d payed a bit more for extra storage as, you cannot change the SSD drives in Macs once you’ve purchased them.
So how does the Satechi Type C hub fix those problems?
“I genuinely love this thing and would highly recommend it to any Mac Mini user who like me, is looking for more ports and more storage.”
Clever Design
The Satechi Type C hub is designed to sit beneath the M1 Mac Mini. The top of the hub has a shaped recess so that the Mac Mini fits snugly on top and once it’s on there it doesn’t move around.
The hub connects to the Mac mini via USB C. Yes, you are losing the use of one of the thunderbolt ports on the back, but what you gain from that is definitely worth it I think.
Along the front of the Satechi hub are: SD and Micro SD card slots, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, three USB A 3.0 data ports and one USBC data port. That is a huge increase in available port options.
There are a couple of big advantages to this setup for me.
The inclusion of SD card slots here is brilliant. As someone who has used a couple of different mirrorless cameras while creating content for this website over the years, the need to constantly break out a dongle in order to get footage from SD cards onto my Mac has been really quite annoying.
The convenience of this is fantastic. Satechi say that the three USB A 3.0 ports on the front are data only, but I had no issues attaching audio interfaces, external hard drives or USB keyboards (sometimes all three simultaneously) and having them all operate as they should.
Same goes for the USB C port, though again I was able to attach external SSDs and audio interfaces with no issues at all.
Not only are all these extra ports ridiculously handy, they’re all located on the front, making swapping out different gear easy peasy.
A Huge Storage Increase
“Your Mac will see this drive as long as you have the hub attached and it’s a much more wallet friendly way of increasing your storage”
Buying extra storage from Apple when you first configure the Mac you want to buy on the Apple store is really expensive.
If You wanted to upgrade the base model Mac Mini’s paltry 256GB storage to 1TB for example, it would cost you a whopping £400.
This is why as I mentioned earlier, I went for the 512GB storage option. On the bottom of the Satechi Type C hub is a wee compartment where you can install an M.2 SATA SSD drive. Your Mac will see this drive as long as you have the hub attached and it’s a much more wallet friendly way of increasing your storage.
Unfortunately, only M.2 SATA SSD’s are compatible (faster NVME drives are not) but M.2 storage is speedy enough that you can load and edit all of your GarageBand or Logic Pro projects from them without a hitch.
I grabbed a 1TB Western Digital Red M.2 SSD for just over £100 on Amazon and it’s been brilliant so far.
Satechi have a helpful list of compatible M.2 SSD’s on their website if you need a little guidance.
I was on the cusp of forking out over 2 grand for a shiny new Mac Studio last month because I needed more ports, more storage and the thought of all that extra power (that, lets face i would probably never have used) was nice too.
Luckily I regained my sanity long enough to have a look around the internet to see if any other expansion options existed. I am VERY glad that I did!
Instead of spending silly money on something that I probably didn’t need, i’ve managed to vastly expand my port selection and triple my existing storage capacity for under £200 all in.
I genuinely love this thing and would highly recommend it to any Mac Mini user who like me, is looking for more ports and more storage.
