CalDigit TS5 Plus Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station: 20-Port PCIe-10GbE Mac|PC

I have had this dock for about three weeks, and it does everything it promises to do. The Thunderbolt 5 ports work exceptionally well. All of the charging ports provide their specified charging power. The audio port is exceptional. It's the first dock audio port that transmits high-quality sound. The 10 GbE Thunderbolt 5 Ethernet port is an exceptional value. The USB ports all perform as expected. The DP 2.1 DisplayPort will support nearly any level of monitor. This dock will easily support three 4k displays via the two downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports, which are DisplayPort 2.1 compatible. The downstream Thunderbolt 5 port will charge a laptop with 140W of power. Unlike any other dock, this one will charge everything you can connect to it at full power. It has two 36W USB-C charging ports. They charge my Samsung S24 Ultra very quickly. This dock has enough power to provide full charging capacity out of every single port even IF you have you are charging an accessory on every single port. There is NO other Thunderbolt dock on the market that will do that. ALL of the Thunderbolt 5 docks I have researched will not charge your computer at 140W if you're charging other accessories (like a phone, an iPad, a portable charging power bank, etc. This is the only dock on the market that doesn't have "dynamic charging." In other words, the more you plug into other docks, the slower everything charges, including your laptop. This dock charges EVERYTHING at full speed, no matter how many items you have plugged into it. The two card readers are super fast. They are so fast that you could use a 1 TB CF card as storage. I haven't had a single problem with this dock. Everything in this dock is state-of-the-art and cutting-edge, and ALL of its features work flawlessly. It's hands down the best dock on the market right now. This actually stunned me when I got the dock and was testing every function. Because it is so expensive, if any major feature had been buggy or failed to perform as advertised I would have returned it. But everything worked amazingly well on the dock. When you consider it includes a 10GbE Thunderbolt 5 ethernet port, which will provide LAN internet speeds of nearly 10 Gbps, it is an exceptional value. A separate Thunderbolt 5 10 GbE adapter would cost $200-$1000. This is the best dock you can buy right now, bar none.

Excruciatingly expensive, unquestionably reliable. Using a Sonic 10Gbe signal through an ASUS ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro WiFi 7 Router hardwired to an M5 MacBook I consistently get 7000-8000Mbps. Numerous ports. Hot but who cares. If you need it, you need it. Cat6a cabling worked better for me than cat8. Recommended highly.

This is awesome. I bought a few different hubs for my Mac Mini M4. Nothing worked as well as this. What I learned through this months long process is that the technology in the hub is the most important piece. Two examples. My external 8 TB SSD drive connected to this hub and then to the Mac is significantly faster than connecting the SSD directly to the Mac if you can believe that. This thing has better protocols than the Mac itself. I have some KEF speakers connected to my computer, and they are extremely touchy. They always require going in their own thunderbolt port and would refuse to work with any other hub. They work perfectly with this hub, which says a lot based on the huge headache they’ve given me for years. I’ve taken the severe power drain and strain off of my Mac, which is now running much cooler. I’m shocked at the cost of this thing, but it is worth every penny after dealing with all the other nightmare products. Always buy the hub with the greatest amount of ports you can afford. It’s always worth it.

I purchased the CalDigit TS5 Plus Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station to use with a brand-new, high-end Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16IAX10H. Given the price and CalDigit’s reputation, I expected a premium product backed by knowledgeable customer support. Unfortunately, my experience has been extremely disappointing. The ports on the TS5 Plus work inconsistently and seemingly at random. Devices connected to certain ports will sometimes work and other times will not. I have had to restart my computer multiple times just to get a port to recognize a connected device. For a premium docking station, this level of unreliability is unacceptable. What made the experience worse was my interaction with CalDigit customer support. When I called for assistance, rather than seriously troubleshooting the problem, I was left with the impression that I must be doing something wrong. I was told that the TS5 Plus was their newest docking station and was asked which computer I was using. After explaining that I had just purchased a new Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16IAX10H directly from Lenovo, I was told there was a good chance my computer simply wasn’t advanced enough and wasn't compatible with the dock. I was then advised that I might want to purchase the older CalDigit TS4 because it could work better with my "older" computer. Again, this is a newly purchased, high-end Lenovo Legion Pro 7. The technical problems are frustrating, but the customer service experience was even more disappointing. I contacted CalDigit because I wanted help getting their product to work properly, not to be spoken down to or made to feel as though I didn't understand how to use a docking station. If a premium Thunderbolt 5 docking station has compatibility limitations with certain computers, CalDigit should clearly communicate those limitations before customers purchase it. More importantly, when a customer contacts technical support with a legitimate problem, the response should be to diagnose the issue and help resolve it rather than immediately suggesting that the customer's computer or knowledge is the problem. For the price of the TS5 Plus, I expected much better reliability and substantially better support. Based on my experience with both the product and CalDigit customer service, I cannot recommend the TS5 Plus even though I work in IT.

Got a unit that was dead on arrival then got amazon to replace it. I was up and running in minutes of plugging in all my usb ports. Works great. Runs a little warm. I left plenty of room around for air flow. Wish it ran cooler but hey its 300W total power in this unit so I am not to surprised. Just concerned on longevity due to the heat dissipation. One thing to note the power light does not turn on the unit until it is connected to the laptop. I wish it had another another Display port, KVM switch, and fan for cooling., although there is more than enough USB ports for just everything including all the Thunderbolt-5 ports needed.... Price is higher than most but more features.

I just got this a couple of days ago, so I can't say how it holds up long term. It is expensive but so far it just works. I didn't want flashy lights or a fan. I wanted to be able to hook up two 8k monitors via USBC. I love being able to have everything plugged into this and then just having 1 connection to my macbook. As lazy as it sounds, it makes me take the macbook away from my desk more often. Monitors, ethernet, audio, ... you name it.

I got this as I am a full time remote worker. I use this for both my work laptop (windows), and my Macbook pro. There are plenty of Thunderbolt connections on the back, it's easy to set up, the build qualityis good as it's built out of aluminum. It can get fairly hot, I don't keep it under my monitor riser for that reason. For the most part, compatibility is fine. My dell laptop doesn't recognize the TS5+ as a full power charger. Dell laptops use a proprietary charging handshake/protocol so the TS5+ will only charge the laptop at 90w. This is a problem with Dell in my opinion. For the most part 90W is plenty for keeping my precision 5770 topped up.

I bought the CalDigit TS5 Plus with high expectations because of its premium price and reputation, but I’m very disappointed with the compatibility. It does not work properly with older standards and laptops like the Lenovo Legion 5i 16IRX10, while much cheaper docking stations can maintain a stable and reliable connection without issues. What frustrates me most is that these compatibility limitations are not clearly mentioned anywhere in the official documentation or product pages. For a docking station in this price range, I expected much broader compatibility and better transparency from the manufacturer. The hardware quality itself seems good, but compatibility is one of the most important parts of a dock, and this experience made the product feel overpriced for what it delivers.

Excelente producto

Great looking and high performance device!!

Firstly: I got this from Amazon because it's where stock was available, but it doesn't seem like price is actually different from other vendors at the moment. Amazon just front-loads the import fees and duties so you're not caught off-guard when the package arrives at your door. That said, this unit will eventually be natively available in Canada, without these fees. So unless you're impatient like me, I'd recommend waiting for that to happen before buying (and any kinks with the firmware should be ironed out by then). PROS The high price, in my opinion, is very justified. I've used the CalDigit TS3+ before this, but had to abandon it after upgrading to a 4k monitor. The TS5+ is now my favourite piece of tech on my desk, if just because it simplifies so much of my setup and workflow. I have my Macbook Pro M4, my work PC, and my Windows Desktop PC all plugged into my dock via thunderbolt cables, along with common accessories like my keyboard, mouse, mic, and audio. My Macbook and work PC (a Lenovo P14S Gen 2) work basically out of the box, as expected. My PC took some fiddling, and I was worried it would be incompatible; it urns out the motherboard uses USB-C Gen3.2 40gbps, not Thunderbolt 5, which was my mistake. But thankfully the PC does still connect, after I established a connection directly to the monitor, and then swapped that connection to the dock using a TB4 cable. The dock is super high-quality as well. It uses a pair of USB controllers instead of just one, so it doubles the bandwidth between devices if you know which ports to use. It means I can keep my devices charged very efficiently, I have absurd read/write speeds to and form hard drives, and I face virtually no lag or artifacts on my display. I can have all of my devices connected to my PC via a single cable (not so much my desktop, but that's more by virtue of wanting a consistent ethernet connection), and swap between them just by swapping cables. I did encounter a bug where my display would disconnect occasionally, at first, but a firmware update fixed this. CONS In my week of practical use, I haven't personally encountered any issues that really stuck. I did have issues connecting my Windows Desktop PC at first, but I think that was just because I needed to connect it straight to my monitor first, establish the connection path, and then connect it back to the CalDigit dock. I also had issues with connecting it again after I swapped to a TB4 wire instead of a USB-C 3.2 wire, so I think the specific wire you use is also important to the data flow. I also had a brief issue where the dock would just... reset the connection between itself and the Windows Desktop. So I'd see a black screen and 'no signal on displayport' for upwards of 10 seconds before the screen would go black again and I'd have my video back. Turns out that the Windows Desktop doesn't automatically update the firmware, so I needed to do that really quickly first. After that, I've had no connection issues whatsoever, but I do wish that process had been smoother. I've seen quite a few people on Reddit having issues, but I feel like many of those come down to being more niche use-cases, or people who just didn't understand the hardware properly. Some of them are genuine, and CalDigit has generally been great with their support. I had no doubt that they would be willing to help me if I asked them, but you need to be willing/knowledgeable enough to troubleshoot in very logical depth. There's a lot that can cause issues in a high-bandwidth device like this, from firmware on the dock, to some software configuration on the computer itself, to just using the wrong wire despite thinking you had the right one (like I did). But again: CalDigit has their customer support for a reason. Be willing to use it, don't expect everything to magically work. This is a power-user's dream and a casual user's nightmare. But I guess the biggest con is whether or not you need it. The TB4 still exists, and is still excellent. Even if you're trying to future proof your dock, you need to ask yourself if the price increase is worth it. If you plan to drive multiple laptops or compatible desktops to use multiple 4k monitors (or even a single high-refresh-rate 4k monitor, potentially using HDR if you want) then I think this is about the best there is, and it will remain that way for quite a while. But if you don't have 4k monitors, and need something faster and with more mature firmware, get the TB4. You'll save some money.

I'm experiencing frequent disconnections between my MacBook Pro M4 Max and the CalDigit TS5 Plus. When it happens, the entire dock drops for a moment, the display goes black and my mouse stops responding and then everything reconnects on its own. I've tried the included cable as well as reputable third-party options from Silkland and Cable Matters, with the same result. I initially suspected my ASUS monitor was contributing to the problem, but the issue persists with an Apple Studio Display connected instead, which points to the dock itself rather than the display or cabling. Edit: Despite the issues above, I reached out to CalDigit support and they were quick to help. They got the problem sorted out, and the dock has been working as expected since. Great customer service.

Best dock I’ve ever had. I purchased this for the 10gbps Ethernet and because I heard it was silent in operation. It has not disappointed. Great connectivity, silent, absurdly fast transfer speeds on my local 10gbps local network, and everything just works.