StarTech USB-C Docking Station Review

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StarTech has their hands in a lot of markets, but as the docking station has become increasingly popular with USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, they have looked outside of the box to design some unique solutions.

The MST30C2HDPPD or as we will call it from here on out, the USB-C Dock is the latest solution to come from StarTech. This solution tackles an array of storage, charging and connectivity issues all within one device. Starting with connectivity; on the front we have audio and a single USB charging port while on the back we have two USB 3.0 ports, gigabit ethernet and two DisplayPort connections capable of 4K30 in a single monitor mode or 1080p60 over two monitors. To round things off the top of this docking solution offers a single 2.5" SATA drive bay. As far as charging is concerned this dock does support fast charging and up to 60W via USB-PD 2.0

Compatibility includes Windows and macOS. MSRP is set at $274.99 with a three-year warranty. MST functionality does NOT work with macOS.

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Packaging follows the yellow stripe on a white box design we have seen from all previous StarTech products.

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Included with, we find a USB-C cable, drive screws for the 2.5" bay and power brick.

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Looking over the front of the dock, to the left we have the USB Fast Charge port along with audio and LEDs for drive bay activity.

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On the backside, we have a full I/O with power input, host USB-C connection followed by dual DP, gigabit ethernet, and dual USB 3.0 ports.

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As mentioned the top offers 2.5: SATA drive compatibility, we are using a SanDisk X600 for testing.

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Starting off with the 2.5" SATA bay on top of the docking station, we find it to offer solid performance, our X600 reached 455 MB/s read and 449 MB/s write.

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The front mounted USB 3.0 charging port offered 448 MB/s read and 450 MB/s write.

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Rear USB 3.0 threw its name in the hat with 448 MB/s read and 450 MB/s write.

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Last, we have network throughput peaking at 941.76

The only thing I couldn't make a chart for was DisplayPort functionality and in that case, I had no issues with the StarTech dock powering up my LG Ultrawide at 1440p or my secondary Dell 4K monitor. That said both were only allowed 30Hz.

On to performance where I was quite surprised by the StarTech Dock, all the USB 3.0 ports performed amazingly well, and the top mounted SATA bay offered plenty of performance. In all test cases, we had no issues using the StarTech dock even with Gigabit ethernet; we found top-notch performance.

Build quality isn't quite there for this solution, it feels very cheap in-hand, all the plastics rattle and the top mounted drive is a pain in the **** to remove. It's disappointing, the Display Ports don't support 4K60, and the host connection isn't "legit" USB-C aka Gen 2, but rather Gen 1 taking advantage of reversible connectivity. This leads me to the price, which I usually don't comment on, but StarTech has gone off the rocker with its MSRP at $274.99. Essentially, pushing this dock into the same space with top-tier offerings from CalDigit and OWC.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z370 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i3 8350K (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 4x8GB DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Air 540 (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)
• Wi-Fi NIC: ASUS PCE-AC88 (buy from Amazon)
• 10Gbe NIC: ASUS XG-C100C (buy from Amazon)
• Thunderbolt 3: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)