Best budget imac docking station

Hey there!

+1 to the OWC suggestion.

Depending on what you need to connect with the dock, a bus-powered OWC USB dock may work, such as the OWC USB-C Travel Dock E - OWC.

A USB dock would be ideal if you aren't connecting bus-powered hard drives or other high-powered, or high-performance, devices.

However, if you do plan to connect hard drives or other devices that might require stable power, a self-powered Thunderbolt dock may be a better fit, such as the OWC 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock - OWC.

Hope this helps!

-Jack

Jack-19 wrote:

Depending on what you need to connect with the dock, a bus-powered OWC USB dock may work, such as the OWC USB-C Travel Dock E - OWC.

I believe it can be turned into a powered dock by buying a separate USB-C power brick, and a USB-C cable rated for USB-C Power Delivery. One of the footnotes on the OWC site says:

"When a USB-C power adapter is connected to the dock's USB-C port, the dock will draw up to 8W power from the adapter instead of bus-powering from the host computer."

Note that the USB-C port is for power input only and can't be used to plug in accessories such as drives.

Whatever you get make sure it's self powered. I strongly recommend any that meet your needs from OWC (MacSales.com).

Contact their Customer Support to find which of their several docks meet you needs and budget.

madebydanny_uk wrote:

I need help finding a budget docking station for my iMac (M1 2021) under $170 (USD). It does not need to be Thunderbolt.

I just need it to have an SD card, USB A and C. A Display Port and/or HDMI would be nice, but it's not needed.

$170 USD would be enough to buy you some Thunderbolt docks and hubs.

Plain USB-C docks typically cost $25 – $50 USD, and provide a HDMI port, a SDXC card slot, Gigabit Ethernet, USB-A ports, and sometimes USB-C "USB data only" ports. If you are just talking about USB 2/3 protocol – at speeds up to 10 Gbps – it is easy to convert between USB-A and USB-C in either direction.

Check OWC.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/docks

madebydanny_uk wrote:

I prefer, I just wanted to know if you had any in mind!

No sorry. I haven't compared the no doubt hundreds that are available. I would contact OWC, explain your needs and they will give you options.

Check Amazon.com

Good to see others agreed with me. 😎

If it were m,e then I would elaborate as to what "my needs" were