Seagate game dock
A Thunderbolt docking station and external HDD in one.
“It combines the plug and play ease of an external HDD with the connectivity options of a dock into a single unit that’s connected via a Thunderbolt 3 cable”.
Docking stations aren’t anything new, and neither are external hard drives, but how about combining them both? That’s exactly what Seagate has done with its FireCuda Gaming Dock. It combines the plug and play ease of an external HDD with the connectivity options of a dock into a single unit that’s connected via a Thunderbolt 3 cable. We have to say, it looks really awesome too.
The FireCuda Gaming Dock is a somewhat unusual looking device. The majority of it is basically a drab looking box, but there’s a stylised section that features RGB lighting, and the overall effect is a fantastic combination of subtlety and bling. It really does look like a sophisticated piece of kit.
It comes with a built in 4TB hard drive. Some users might question why there isn’t an SSD included, but fear not. There’s an M.2 slot that supports NVMe, so you can add one and enjoy fast, low latency storage combined with the hard drive for file storage. Gamers will appreciate the extra speed on offer from an SSD as opposed to typical external HDD.
The Gaming Dock connects via a Thunderbolt 3 cable. There’s also a pass through for connecting other Thunderbolt 3 devices. It’s powered by an external power adapter, so there won’t be any problem powering a bunch of different devices.
These days, despite the increasing shift towards Type-C USB on compact laptops, people still use Type-A devices. The FireCuda dock comes with four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports so there should be enough Type-A ports to cater for most users’ needs. There’s an additional USB port that supports charging which will come in handy for juicing up tablets and phones.
You also get a gigabit Ethernet port. This is something that very few ultra-thin models have due to the height of the port. WiFi has come a long way in recent years, but you can’t beat the reliability of a good old LAN connection if you have the option.
Additionally, there’s a pair of 3.5mm audio in and out ports and a particularly welcome DisplayPort 1.4 connector. This will be an essential feature for users wanting to send their laptop’s output to a monitor.
Setting up the FireCuda dock was as simple as plugging in the unit. All the ports were recognised without requiring any extra setup or driver installation. You should download Seagate’s Toolkit software which includes functionality including backups and RGB control. We also noted the RGB lighting is very bright, but thankfully you can dial it down a bit.
Our impressions of the FireCuda Gaming dock only got better as we tinkered with it. It provides a comprehensive set of ports and flexible storage that’s incredibly simple to use. It’s the kind of device that will seem like a total system upgrade, without having to actually upgrade the system. If you’ve got a Thunderbolt 3 equipped laptop, then it should have something that you’ll take advantage of. Gamers, professionals and enthusiasts will find the FireCuda Gaming dock does a little bit of everything, and it does it with a touch of class too.