Finally, a relatively inexpensive storage and port docking station for the M4 Mac mini that isn’t limited by bandwidth.
For years, Thunderbolt and USB docking stations have been designed to fit neatly under your Mac mini. They were good and bad.
In the 15 years I’ve been doing this gig on the internet, I’ve seen the same bandwidth issue over and over again. I recently checked a bunch of hubs that use 10 gigabit USB-C instead of 40 gigabit plus Thunderbolt, and manufacturers somehow expect external storage, USB ports, and HDMI connections to work fine with 10 gigabit per second bandwidth.
The pair of Beelink Mate mini Docks for the Mac mini M4 address this directly by, thankfully, using Thunderbolt 5.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: Design
The Beeklink Mate mini Dock is actually designed for use with the M4 Mac mini, although you can use it with other Mac hardware. At 5 inches square and 0.6 inches thick, it’s built to function as a platform or hat for Apple’s smallest Mac.
It’s not just the size that makes it usable with the Mac mini. It has rounded corners just like the Mac mini and also an aluminum alloy that is color tight. Even the front white LED and rear ports match the Apple versions.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: Rear port view.
Unlike some other pedestal-style models, you can place the Beelink Mate mini either under or on top of the Mac mini itself. In both orientations, there is room at the bottom for the built-in cooling fan to operate, similar to the Mac mini.
To facilitate this dual arrangement, Beelink includes a pair of cables to connect the dock to the Mac mini. They are short U-shaped versions that take advantage of how the ports are aligned to take up as little space behind the assembly as possible.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: The ports are very well aligned
We recommend placing it above the Mac mini. While there wasn’t a huge drop in Wi-Fi speed like some docks we’ve used, we did see about a 15% hit over the Mac mini right on a chipboard table.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: Connectivity
You’re getting a docking station, so you need more ports or more storage. Beeline Mate mini connects to Thunderbolt, which allows it to use 80 gigabits per second of available bandwidth to work with an expanded selection of ports.
It will also work with USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4, at 40 gigabits per second, both of which are better than the 10 gigabits per second USB-C hubs we’ve seen in the past.
Ports start with a separate USB-C power connector on the far left. This isn’t really needed, but if you connect enough hardware that the power consumption is higher than 15W, you’ll need to add one. When connecting a microphone, keyboard, internal SSD and external SSD at the same time, we did not encounter a problem.
There are two additional USB Type-A connections running on USB 3.0. Each of them therefore provides a bandwidth of up to 5 Gbps. That’s pretty typical.
The ports also include a 3.5mm audio jack, which provides the same functionality as the front headphone jack on the Mac mini. This is the ideal place to connect speakers instead of dragging the TRRS connector around the front of your Mac mini.
An Ethernet port is also included. It matches the Mac mini version perfectly and is a 2.5 gigabit connection per second compared to the gigabit ethernet on most Mac mini M4s.
There is an SD 4.0 memory card reader on the side. Beeline says it can work at speeds of up to 300 megabytes per second. Our testing confirmed this, around 200 megabytes per second.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: Storage and performance
Mate mini comes in two models. Both versions were provided by Beelink for review.
Model A is the high-capacity variant with two M.2 PCIe 4.0 x2 slots that allow up to 16TB of capacity if you use two 8TB drives.
The other, Model B, is a high-speed alternative. While it only has one M.2 slot that can hold up to 8TB, it’s a PCIe 4.0 4x slot with a significantly higher potential speed.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: Adding M.2 drives.
The difference is important because you can get a significant speed boost with the Model B storage over the Model A. In Beelink’s testing with the Mac mini M4 Pro, the company claims the Model A achieves read speeds of up to 3,600MB/s and write speeds of 3,400MB/s.
Beelink claims the single-slot Model B can read 6,996MB/s and write 5,070MB/s.
While you sacrifice capacity, you gain back in terms of access speed, which can be important for some creative fields. Of course, this also depends on installing the right fast storage for the job.
However, accessing the units requires some basic knowledge of electronics. After removing the rubber feet, you need to remove a few Phillips head screws for this cover and then four more screws for the internal SSD slot covers.
It is not difficult for the average user. It’s not the easiest to install, but it’s not particularly difficult either.
After putting in a unit or units and heat pads I got a little less than Beelink said but within error. On the M4 Pro Mac mini and M4 16-inch MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 5, I saw read and write speeds of about 3100 megabytes per second for the dual-slot model.
The single-disk model provided a read speed of about 5800 megabytes per second and a write speed of 4350 megabytes per second.
When using a Thunderbolt 4 host, specifically the M4 Mac mini, performance was the same for both models. Read and write speeds reached about 2700 megabytes per second in both cases, which is largely limited by the PCI-E and Thunderbolt 4 allocations.
I am quite happy with the results. It is a small port and the heat was not a problem.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: A pocket-sized rocket
The appearance does not match the aesthetics of the Mac mini. The time to line up the ports is not just for looks, but also for practicality, as evidenced by the internal cables.
Beelink Mate mini Dock review: The dock itself.
The inclusion of one or two fast M.2 memory slots in the unit is also great, but the real secret sauce is the support for Thunderbolt 5. When it comes to connectivity, this means you don’t have to worry about problems with connected devices and internal storage.
It’s an option that I really hope other cabinet manufacturers adopt in the future, even at the value end of the market. Beelink shows how important connection speed really is, and also proves that it doesn’t have to be incredibly expensive.
Beelink Mate mini Dock Pros
- Useful port selection
- Thunderbolt 5 support
- M.2 expansion in two ways
Beelink Mate mini Dock Disadvantages
- A more complicated SSD installation than typical, but still not bad
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Frankly, I’m happy to review a custom-made, inexpensive mini dock for Mac that isn’t limited by bandwidth. There are some fun and too-slow 10 gigabit per second USB-C that are vaguely shaped like a Mac mini, but my favorite to date is the Beelink Mate mini.
Where to buy Beelink Mate mini Dock
The Beelink Mate mini Dock is available for pre-order in Model A and Model B forms for $159 on the Beelink website, excluding storage. There are also pre-populated storage options, starting at $279 for 2TB and going up to $779 for 8TB.
Disc-less options are also available from Amazon, at $139 each for Prime members, $189 for non-Prime.
Our recommendation is to buy from Amazon and bring your own storage.