It’s always exciting when a company like Hyper steps up to deliver exactly what the market has been craving. As Thunderbolt 5 evolves into the powerhouse it was promised to be, it has climbed to the top of every power user’s wish list. Fortunately, Hyper has risen to the occasion once again with the HyperDrive Next Thunderbolt 5 Dock.
Thunderbolt 5 (TB5) promised to tap into what the connectivity standard is best known for, bringing with it some of the best enhancements it has ever offered for speed, power, and physical connectivity. Of course, many of these promises can be theoretical when new technologies like this rise into the real world, sometimes leading to a less desirable result. But not TB5. Instead, it has proven to be a powerful solution for data processing and throughput (up to 80Gbps), graphics (up to 120Gbps), expandability (video cards and other PCIe options), and more.
A TB5 dock is a great way of delivering all of this, as it taps into a variety of connections and features that help devices, like a laptop, turn into something closer to a full-blown tower computer. Making it great for everything from gaming to heavy workstation performance (coding, video encoding, AI, VMs, and more). It allows you to unlock much more when it comes to what your hardware is capable of. Such as taking advantage of a desktop-level dedicated graphics card externally, breathing new life into your system, or tapping into the speeds of the latest NVMe products, coming close to native on-board performance.
With this model, you can add ten (10) new ports to your system, regardless of whether it’s a laptop or PC (it’s just that more laptops support TB5 right now than motherboards that do).
The backside features one Thunderbolt 5 (TB5) host port used to connect it to your laptop (or tower computer), which supports 140W EPR PD 3.1 power delivery. There are also two TB ports for additional devices or chains of devices, two USB-A (10Gbps, 4.5W) ports, a 2.5GbE (2.5Gbps Ethernet) port, a power connection, and two options for Kensington security locks.
The front side offers two more USB-A (10Gbps) ports (one 4.5W, the other 7.5W for a little additional charging capability), another TB port for your devices, and a 3.5mm TRS/TRRS analog headset (mic + headphones) connection.
There is also a power button that allows you to manually power it up or down without having to disconnect anything, and a status LED. Sadly, there is no SD or micro SD slot this time. But there are plenty of USB options out there that would work just fine.
Both sides of the dock offer small exhaust slots because inside the dock, there is a fan (active cooling) helping to keep everything cool when needed. But why would this be needed? I mean, most docks in the market don’t offer active cooling as it isn’t typically needed. Except, this one has a powerful M.2 slot inside for your favorite NVMe drives (both old and new).
The bottom of the dock features a small screw that you can remove, revealing the M.2 slot inside. There is a thick thermal pad located both under and above it, already installed, so all you have to do is drop in a drive, screw it into place with the provided mount screw, and close it back up.
You can hear the power of the tiny fan inside (or fans, maybe?), the moment you first plug it in, as well as feel the air coming out. So you know it can make a difference when it comes to minimizing any chances of thermal throttling. This is incredibly important since newer NVMe drives can get unbearably hot when put to work.
Performance
The first thing we wanted to focus on is the dock’s internal M.2 NVMe slot and what it can bring to the table. Since laptops are typically limited to one or two NVMe slots (more commonly, just one, for entry to mid-grade models), going external is the only way to add additional storage. Being able to build that into the dock means one less thing having to be plugged in somewhere, keeping your footprint cleaner, with fewer cables running about.
We strapped the HyperDrive Next Thunderbolt 5 Dock to one of our latest MSI laptops, which has two Thunderbolt 5 ports on the side. We have been using these laptops to benchmark most of the TB5 devices that come in. In fact, we used these in testing the last few external TB5 NVMe enclosures that came in recently, which resulted in impressive numbers.
But then, when testing it against this TB5 dock, those NVMe transfer numbers grew a little, giving us some of the best we have seen yet in a TB5 solution. We do suffer from a slight handicap since NVMe companies stopped sending out products for testing ever since the inflation issues took off, but we still have plenty of options lying around to test with, so no harm there (yet).
We started soft, with a random Kingston PCIe Gen 3 model that was within reach (this is an OEM model used in various laptops and mini PCs). The last story this one was used in maxed out at around 1.3GB/s in read speeds, which was decent for a Gen 3 model and only accessible externally at its max speeds using Thunderbolt (or USB4). We were expecting around the same speeds with this dock, although theoretically, it could reach speeds of up to 1.7GB/s or even 1.9(ish) as a buffered read speed.
The result was that write speeds were able to hit a stable average of around 0.98GB/s, peaking past 1.1GB/s, and the read speed shot up to 1.989 GB/s, moved around a little, but kept wanting to push for that 1.9-ish record. Needless to say, that was impressive, since the other recent TB5 enclosures (and other docks/enclosures of various TB generations) struggled to reach this number for some reason (for this specific drive).
So we moved on to using a Samsung 960 EVO NVMe, which is normally capable of higher speeds. In a recent story, this drive gave us a little trouble, suggesting something might be wrong with it. So we had labeled it for testing to see if we had put this one through too many harsh benchmarks over the last few years. But this was not the case, as it just needed a little TLC (some scanning, defrag, and the norm). We also toggled a few settings back and forth just in case Windows was being lame (ie, write caching, etc) and forgot how to function. Then off we went with the tests, tucked away inside the HyperDrive dock.
The drive was absolutely fine, although its write speeds could be better. As seen in the above results, the write speeds fell below the Kensington OEM drive, which was a bit surprising. However, the read speeds were much better, averaging beyond 3GB/s in all of the tests.
We did this with a few more Gen 3 drives to see what we could max out, and the results were as expected. The drives were being maxed out, and the TB5 dock didn’t even break a sweat. So then we broke out the big guns.
We dropped in a WD_Black 1TB SN8500X NVMe, giving it the taste of a faster drive. This led to results above 5GB/s in both directions. Now we were talking. It really pushed for 6GB/s+ read speeds, but this didn’t remain anywhere close to the average. So we had to take what we could get with just a hair under that.
For an external drive, this was more than acceptable. Making this dock a great option for professionals looking to tap into their video editing tasks, or enthusiasts looking to get the most out of their gaming. Or, the use of AI accelerator modules for more modern tasks and challenges.
However, we’ve yet to see its full potential. This dock is designed to handle up to PCIe Gen 4 x4 models with ease, fully leveraging Thunderbolt 5’s massive throughput for data-heavy workflows. Unfortunately, the Samsung 9100 Pro we typically use for benchmarking has gone MIA—likely misplaced or unknowingly swapped into a forgotten project—leaving our favorite test drive out of commission for over a month. So we weren’t quite able to push it that far this round — Samsung, if you want to send another one out, we will remedy this quickly! ^_-
So there is a high chance that we may be coming back to this later on once we have refreshed our arsenal. As a PCIe Gen 5 drive should be able to max this dock out to show us what it can really do. But for now, nearly all of the drives we have freely lying around right now fall within the Gen 3 to Gen 4 range, which is fine since this, alone, falls into the specs just fine (PCIe Gen 5 just isn’t in the specs–this round).
That being said, let’s move on to video expandability, since docking stations are quite commonly used to add additional monitors to your setup. This is something that some people might tilt their head at since it doesn’t contain any HDMI ports. This is because it is a potential waste of space on the dock (and the price) if you aren’t going to be maxing every single available port up.
Instead of offering dedicated HDMI ports, the dock focuses on those TB ports as a fix-all solution for all of your more powerful accessories and graphics options. You want to hook up an eGPU or an extra monitor? You just have to connect it to one of those TB ports. If it is a monitor, you would either use a proper USB-C cable if your monitor supports USB-C for video, or a USB-C (or TB) to HDMI cable/adapter.
You can connect up to three monitors using the dock, at up to 4K@144Hz each, allowing for a powerful multi-monitor setup. This helps push things a little further than recent docks of the past, which were usually limited to 4K@60. You can also go 8K with this dock, but you’d be limited to a single 8K@60 connection.
You can also add PCIe cards to setups that normally could never tap into such desktop-level expansions. Thanks to solutions like the OWC Mercury Helios 5S Thunderbolt 5 PCIe Expansion, you can add virtually any PCIe card to your system by connecting that system to this dock via one of the TB ports. This is another great example of the many things you can accomplish with TB5, and it really opens a lot of doors for users.
Our Conclusion
This is a powerful Thunderbolt 5 solution with plenty of connectivity, covering most users out there. Only leaving out those who want a mix of TB expandability *and* dedicated HDMI or DP connectivity (which will likely come later on as a more pro-level release from the company, I’m sure). But for 90% of the world, this dock will likely provide everything one could need (at least, until the world begins moving to new standards, like 10GbE connections, etc.).
I do wish it had an SD and/or Micro SD card slot, as this is typically accepted as a universal option for most docks. Again, there may be newer, more involved docks coming from Hyper in the future. The company is known for powerful, versatile solutions for every level of user. And you can easily find all sorts of USB solutions as an adapter.
Beyond that, with 10-total ports, active cooling, expandability for your monitors, and a fast NVMe slot, this makes for a great solution. Not only that, but with an MSRP of $399, it appears to be well-priced for TB5, giving Hyper an edge within the market. There is a lot to like about this one.
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