I have complicated feelings about the M4 Mac Mini’s port selection. Thunderbolt and USB-C are great, but the lack of an old-fashioned USB-A port is frustrating. Now, Satechi hopes to rectify the problem with a redesigned Stand & Hub. My feelings are, once again, complicated.
Satechi sells a ton of great accessories for the Apple ecosystem, the most notable of which (at least to me) is the Mac Mini Stand & Hub. It’s an awesome product that adds user-expandable NVMe SSD storage, SD card readers, and extra USB ports to the Mac Mini. And, importantly, it looks good. It’s not a dongle or a brick—it’s a natural extension of Apple’s smallest computer.
Previous versions of the Satechi Mac Mini Stand & Hub had an expansive I/O. Three USB-A ports (two 3.0, one 3.2), a USB-C port (3.2 speeds), a 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD and SD card readers (UHS-I speeds), and the aforementioned NVMe slot with transfer rates up to 10Gbps.
The M4 Mac Mini has a redesigned chassis and does not fit on previous Stand & Hub accessories. Its port selection was also redesigned—it’s got a robust selection of USB-C and Thunderbolt inputs, but no USB-A ports. Plus, Apple moved the headphone jack to the front of the unit.
Naturally, Satechi responded to these changes by redesigning the Stand & Hub. But I’m kind of befuddled by the company’s choices. The new Stand & Hub, which will be on sale in a few months, has three USB-A ports, a full-sized SD card slot, a 10Gbps NVMe drive slot, and nothing more. In terms of basic I/O, it’s a downgrade.
I’ll admit that there’s some logic here. The M4 Mac Mini doesn’t need any extra USB-C ports, so Satechi focused on USB-A and made a few “invisible” upgrades. Two of the USB-A ports on this Stand & Hub feature 3.2 speeds, and the SD card reader has been upgraded to UHS-II, which I’m happy to see. But there are fewer ports altogether. Removing the microSD slot was an odd choice, and Satechi could’ve stuck a 3.5mm jack on the back of the hub for desktop speakers. (Previous models of Mac Mini had a headphone jack on their rear, which was inconvenient for headphones but useful for permanent speakers.)
I’d also like to point out that the Stand & Hub is limited by USB-C speeds. This isn’t a Thunderbolt accessory, which is kind of odd, given that it eats up one of the Thunderbolt ports on the back of the Mac Mini. If bandwidth constraints are the reason for this model’s limited I/O selection, maybe it’s time for Satechi to offer a Thunderbolt 4-capable Stand & Hub. Of course, size might be the real problem. The M4 Mac Mini has a smaller footprint than its forebears. Satechi had to shrink the Stand & Hub, and as far as I can tell, it didn’t increase the accessory’s height to compensate for the reduced width.
If I buy the M4 Mac Mini, I’ll probably pick up the new Satechi Stand & Hub to accompany it. My complaints about port selection don’t erase this product’s stylish usefulness, and the UHS-II card reader is an upgrade that I can genuinely get behind. That said, I believe that this is a harder sell than previous models of Stand & Hub, and a Thunderbolt 4 model with more robust capabilities would be far more attractive despite an increase in cost.
I’ll also take this opportunity to propose something crazy: make a super-powerful Thunderbolt 5 Stand & Hub that doubles the size of the M4 Mac Mini. It would be ridiculous, it would be expensive, and it would only work with M4 Pro computers. But it’d be super-duper cool, too.
Anyways, the Satechi M4 Mac Mini Stand and Hub launches in Spring 2025. Pricing has not been revealed, but previous models were $100, so I assume it’ll be in that range. Satechi will notify you when the hub is available and provide a 20% discount if you sign up for email notifications at the company’s web store.
