Show us your Dock

[DocBrown]

Two and a half years ago I did a thread on external hard drives (HDs)

:ar: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/137123-build-your-own-external-hard-drive.html

Brand name external HDs have become very common nowadays. You just buy 'em & connect 'em & use 'em.

But for some of the newer members/users, I thought maybe they might like to know about some of the other devices that are available when working with extra HDs.

Hard Drive Dock

There are two different kinds of HD docks, internal and external.
They basically do the same function but in slightly different ways.

The internal is just a shell that fits in a drive bay to allow easier access.
It has some adapter connections that allow it to connect to the motherboard
inside the computer.

An external dock can hold the drive in an enclosure or an open exposed
cradle like unit. These units have some small circuit boards inside that help
with the electronics needed for the external connection. The connection can
be USB or eSATA. They all have an external power source.

There are units that are for the older IDE type HDs & for SATA HDs.
There are units that can fit a desktop HD or a laptop HD.
There are units that can hold two (2) HDs at the same time for data
transferring.
There are even some combo units that can handle IDE & SATA at the
same time.
I even found one that holds 2 SATA HDs and one IDE HD at the same time,
plus has 2 additional USB ports & some card reader ports.

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Here are a few of my snips of several different units I have tested.

Feel free to add your pics so everybody can see all the different ones available.

 

[Bongo]

I have this one SYBAUSA - CL-ENC50038 >> Dual Mode: SATA III HDD Duplicator + Docking Station with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Interface and works great.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have five docks. The first is a Kingwin EZD-2535. It can handle both 2.5" and 3.5" drives. It uses either a USB 2.0 cable or an e-SATA cable to connect to the computer. I got it to use temporarily until I got my present computer built (more on that in a bit) so I got the cheapest one I could fine locally. It works fine. The USB 2.0 is a bit slow but I've found the e-SATA connection is considerably faster than USB 2.0 when connected into a SATA III e-SATA slot. The downsides are it needs a PSU (a given with 3.5" docks; a wall wart in this case) and doesn't have a door to keep out dust and help support 2.5" drives. I took care of the dust issue by bending a 3"x5" card to fit against the top and used tape to secure it and act like a hinge. I got it to use temporarily until I got my present machine built (more on that in a bit) but I'm keeping it around just in case since it worked out so well.



The next one is a 2.5" Startech SATDOCK25U USB 2.0 dock for my notebook (I actually have two of them, one in my desk drawer and the other in my notebook bag). It's very portable (it and the USB cable easily fit in a travel soapbox), yet stable thanks to the little base extension that swings out. The only downside is it's USB 2.0 (but that doesn't count since that's all my notebook has). I had one cable go bad (it was easier, and probably cheaper, to just replace the cable). Overall, I'm very happy with them. I use them to backup and restore my notebook.



The last two docks are built into my desktop computer. The 2.5" dock, actually a hot swap bay, came already built into the case. All I had to do was hook it up.



The 3.5" dock is an Antec EASYSATA dock, also hot swappable, that fits into the bottom 5.25" bay. It also provides a front e-SATA port.



I use both mostly for backing up and restoring my internal drives although, should one of my internal DATA drives go south, I can just plug in one of the backup drives and keep chugging along until I can replace the dead internal drive. I also occasionally use the 2.5" bay and a spare HDD to transfer data from my desktop to my notebook. They have the advantage of being out of the way and require no external PSUs or cables.

 

[boohbah]

Doc, i thought this thread title was a typo.

you spelled doc with a k