If you have a computer desk at home, chances are you're either using a big desktop computer with a monitor and other peripherals, or you're just using a laptop with everything built in. Those are fine solutions, but they're limiting in their own ways. A desktop PC and setup isn't really portable, and a laptop by itself isn't the most efficient in terms of the productivity you can get at home.

My main setup at home is powered by a Mac Mini, but I have a secondary setup where I do most of my software testing, and over there, the magic all lies in a single Thunderbolt cable and dock that powers the whole experience. In fact, a setup like this used to be my primary workstation, and if you don't have the privilege of having multiple desks and computers at home, this is probably the best way to go about it. Let me tell you why.

A more productive setup

Desktop peripherals are just better

I used to believe that working from a laptop with the built-in screen was all I ever needed, and to be fair, it's a fine way to do things, depending on your workload. But once I started testing desktop-style peripherals and became able to afford them, it quickly became apparent that I can do much better.

As far as productivity and comfort go, a desktop setup is just better. You can get a bigger screen (or multiple) with more space for the apps you need, a more comfortable and satisfying keyboard, and an actual mouse, which makes it so much easier to get all kinds of work done. It's just not the same as using a laptop by itself, as accustomed as you may be to using one.

Using a single Thunderbolt port on my laptop, I can connect to a dock and instantly have access to all of these peripherals that just work. I keep my peripherals plugged into the dock, so all I need to do is plug in the one Thunderbolt cable into my laptop, and it all comes to life. I can set the laptop itself to the side and just get work done in a much more comfortable way, which is important in a job as fast-paced as mine. All the while, a Thunderbolt cable also keeps my laptop charged.

It works for all my laptops

Just swap them in

Testing all the kinds of software I write about — including new programs, operating systems, or new features in Windows Insider builds — means I have multiple laptops and PCs at the ready in case I need to test something else more quickly. These computers are always ready to go with native performance, which makes my life a lot easier (though I do need to rely on VMs sometimes, of course).

The ease of having a single Thunderbolt cable is even more useful here. Any of my computers can very quickly be ready to go with all of my desktop accessories. Unplug the cable from one PC, plug in the next, and everything just works. It makes it so easy to keep my productivity flowing without having to waste time getting accustomed to different keyboards and trackpads. It always feels familiar.

And if my privileged situation doesn't sound reasonable to you, consider something more realistic: say you have a family computer everyone in the house can use. Using a Thunderbolt cable instead, you can make it so that anyone in the family can bring in their own laptop and use the more comfortable desk setup, and when they're done, they can just pass it on to the next person who can use their own laptop. That way, everyone keeps their private data and files, but they all benefit from that same experience. You may not even need to bother creating multiple accounts on a computer.

Even if you do want a desktop computer everyone shares, maybe you personally still have a laptop, and you sometimes want to use that desktop setup for work. If you use a desktop computer that supports Thunderbolt (many cheaper mini PCs do), you can just as easily switch the cable from that shared PC to your personal laptop. There's a lot of flexibility afforded by this setup.

My data goes with me

No syncing needed

As nice as it would be to be able to work with a big desktop setup all the time, the fact is that I sometimes do need to leave the house, but I still need to work. If I had a separate desktop PC and laptop, I'd need to use a cloud service or find some other way to move my data with me if I need to go somewhere and be able to continue a project I'm working on.

But using a Thunderbolt cable to power my desktop setup means it's still the same computer at heart, which in turn means my data is always with me. If I'm working on something at my desk and I need to continue it while traveling, I don't need to transfer any files over or even think about it at all. Everything is just there all the time.

This means a Thunderbolt-based setup is just as helpful if you have a single laptop as if you have multiple in the house. It can be significantly cheaper than buying both a laptop and a desktop PC, and you can invest in a more capable laptop that offers a better experience in both scenarios.

Thunderbolt enables versatility and flexibility

If you're lucky, you may be able to have a desktop PC and a laptop, and you may even pay for solutions that let you keep your data in sync across devices, but that's not a situation everyone will find themselves in. A Thunderbolt dock allows you to have a more comfortable setup at home, while still letting you take your workstation with all its data on the go so you can keep going from anywhere. Even if you scale up and have multiple laptops in the house, that just means everyone can benefit from the same desktop setup while keeping their personal data. It's a smart solution that can scale in usefulness depending on your needs.