Most of us know what hard drive is, but how about hard drive docking station? In this post, MiniTool will elaborate on what it is and what it does. MiniTool also lists 3 hard drive docking stations to offer a reference for you if you want to pick one for your drives.
Hard Drive Docking Station
How does a hard drive docking station do? Hard drive docking station is used to give PC users quick access to their data on hard drive(s) by using just one USB or SATA. It combines the functions of an external hard drive enclosure with the abilities of partition imaging software.
When do you need to consider buying a hard drive docking station? Whether you have a small business or work in the tech service industry, it is quite useful.
Firstly, it is indeed powerful. Apart from giving quick access to the data stored on your hard drive, hard drive docking station can also speed up your machine, and allow you to clone information without even being online.
Secondly, a hard drive docking station can simplify your job if you want to provide upgrade or maintenance service efficiently for any computer system. What does this mean? With just a few minutes of work, a hard drive docking station can help you upgrade the internal storage easily and the only thing you need to do is remove the old drive and insert it into the duplicator together with a new one.
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Thirdly, an external USB docking station is a good investment if you have old hard drives to work with. Using a docking station quickly and simply interfaces your drives with a PC over a USB cable.
What Is the Best Hard Drive Docking Station?
What is the best hard drive docking station? I cannot give you a definite answer. There are lots of hard drive docking stations in the market, featuring different size, performance and quality. You can keep the following factors in mind when buying this product. They are:
Brand: This factor is quite important as a brand, to a large extent, can determine the quality of hard drive docking station. The same goes hard drive.
Compatibility: You need to pay attention to drive compatibility and system compatibility. More clearly, not all docking station is compatible with SSDs and supports all the current popular operating systems.
Means if connection: What connection is the hard drive docking station made with? USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 or something else.
Price: What is your budget on one hard drive docking station? It is true that the expensive one is better than the cheap one. But the right is best.
According to the above factors, I recommend 4 brands of hard drive docking stations below and you can make a reference.
# Thermaltake BlacX Duet ST0014U-D
Thermaltake BlacX Duet ST0014U-D is the ideal choice for those who are seeking a very reasonably-price ($39.99 on Amazon) hard drive docking station with dual bay.
It can do the following jobs well.
- Hard drive you connect can be immediately recognized due to the plug-and-play capabilities;
- Copy data to drives with the help of cloning software;
- Check the integrity of 2.5” and 3.5” SATA hard drives and monitor the status of hard drives;
- Read and write two hard drivers at the same time.
Key features of this unit:
- Hot swap connectivity;
- Plug and play station;
- SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and the transfer rate up to 5Gbps;
- Compatible with Mac and Windows operating system;
- Compatible with 2.5” and 3.5” SATA hard drives.
# Sabrent External-Duplicator Function-EC HD2B
Like the first recommended hard drive docking station, Sabrent supports two hard drives and features plug-and-play capability and clone function. This unit also gives you top-quality control over your files and help you keep your entire computer history safe.
Key features of this unit:
- Plug and play capability;
- 5Gbps transfer on USB 3.0;
- Compatible with Mac and Windows operating system;
- Compatible with 2.5” and 3.5” SATA or SSD;
- Supports hard drives up to 10TB.
You can get this unit by $34.99 on Amazon at the time of this writing.
# Inateck Docking-Station Offline-Function
This product also features a plug-and-play capability and supports 10TB hard drives and offline copying. Furthermore, this unit has an automatic sleep function that conserves energy and prevents overheating.
There is a big difference from the first recommend hard drive docking stations that this unit is compatible with Linux operating system as well as Windows and Mac operating systems.
Key features of this unit:
- Plug-and-play capability;
- Use USB 3.0 and the transfer rate up to 5Gbps;
- Supports standard desktop 2.5 & 3.5 inch SATA hard drives or SSD;
- Supports up to 10TB hard drives;
- Compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.