HDD Dock advice please

[ssmith]

Hi there. So I have a 3 old hdd's kicking around here and before I throw them out, Im wondering about a dock for at least the hitachi

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 - 80G ATA/133 - Loaded with music and would like to get that off.

Hitachi Deskstar-164.7G- ATA/IDE

And, a real oldie:
Quantun Fireball Plus AS- 40G -AT

Any suggestions on Vantec or Thermaltake, or whatever will work if I can scoop one cheap.
I have other externals but before throwing these out might be worth a shot to try a dock.
thanks

 

[Digerati]

I use a TT docking station and I like it very much. No external enclosure case to open up. Just slide the drive in and go.

BTW, you are wise to want to clear these drives before discarding them. If you have CCleaner, it has a wipe drive feature that will wipe (overwrite the entire drive with random 1s and 0s) these drives of all the old data.

That said, some docking stations are for SATA only, so if looking at ATA, make sure you get the right one. However, since this is just a one time action, it might be easier to just temporarily attach these drives to a secondary drive location in your current computer, then wipe them - instead of buying a docking station for the obsolete drive interface you may never see again.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I use a Rosewill RX-DUS100 dock. Holds just one drive and connects to the PC by either eSATA or SATA 2.0.

4 years old, still works OK. I paid $30.

I occasionally see docks on sale for under $25. I'd say they are commodities without a lot of distinction between them. They are flimsy so don't expect a lot. I use mine only 3 or 4 times a year--otherwise it sits in a closet.

Some newer ones use SATA 3.0. Some cannot handle high capacity drives, so check that. My old Rosewill works OK with 3 TB drives.

Some can handle multiple drives, but that would be useless for my case.

If buying again, I'd probably just find one at $25 or less on sale and hope for the best.

 

[Digerati]

I don't use mine very often either. And I would not use it for any long term or permanent external drive connection either. But for temporarily connecting a drive, these are very convenient.

 

[ssmith]

Thanks for the replies.
I found a Rosewell RX-DU101 for $15.00 on newegg, maybe it will work for just transfering data, maybe not, will give it a shot.

 

[strollin]

That one will probably be OK but it only supports USB 2.0 while others are available that support eSata and USB 3.0 which will give you faster transfer speeds if your PC supports those other connections and it matters to you.