Thermaltake ST0005U HDD Docking Station

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This thing has many use, from backing up files, to transferring to another, to hard drive diagnostics. All of those can be accomplished quite easily with this docking station. Although speeds aren't that good, it is really reliable.

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-Good idea, makes it effortless to clone hard drives, move from technique to program, or do backups employing internal drives-Has both usb and eSata-eSata makes it even quicker-Simple to plug & Play -The light on the side looks exactly like a button you'd push, you can quickly screw it up by pushing in the LED. If you're forgetful like me, put some clear mailing tape over that light so you aren't tempted to push it, and you can nonetheless see the LED.

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I have all Seagate Hard Drives and have no challenge with this. turn it on, put the HD in, and it's read by Pc like a flash thumb drive.!!!! but as rapidly as a Sata 2!!!ō. GB/s that's very enjoyable, I can preserve all spinning drives out of my machine. NONE I eject without having turning it off and it's cool to feel the gyroscopic motion of the drive spinning, positive it might not be great for the drive, but because it has been pointed out to turn it off and then eject, I almost certainly will be undertaking that from now on.

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it worked when it worked. died in 6 months Thermaltake enables cross-shipping, so they shipped a replacement same day (with a credit card guarantee), this gained them an egg.

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So its handy when you have several tough drives (for storage) that you can hotswap. I haven't utilized the eSata because I'm using USB.Came with a broken power button.!!Please read cons. Mine came with a broken power button. It wasn't entirely broken though. It's shoddy assembly. The power button when pushed would not toggle and click flushed.The reviewer beneath me RMA it. THE FIX.Too poor for him though considering that this is an Straightforward fix. All you have to do is open it up and reposition the button. Took me 1 min now it works. There's only two screws. In total 3 parts (bottom, principal circit with detachable wire to the power on light and best, power button cap). Straightforward fix w/out RMA hassle.I believe the reviwer beneath me gave this a 1 star. Its not uncalled for.

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Extremely handy in the terms of how swiftly you can swap tough drives, eSATA allows for high data transfer rates, and the device has been quite trustworthy. Slightly flimsy. It is created of plastic and is too light; I would prefer the dock to have a lot more weight to it as to make it much less most likely to fall more than with a heavy drive in it. I have been running it with a WD 500 GB drive for 6 months and have had no problems.

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Comes with each USB and eSATA cable. Mechanical lever to eliminate drive. Drive held in upright orientation for heat dissipation. Fairly compact.Establishes 3Gb/s link more than eSATA (from kernel messages) Slow - in spite of the ŗGb/s link", could only read SSD drives at a max of 140MB/s. Same drive on internal connector is > 200MB/s. Tested making use of supplied cable. The mechanical removal action appears dangerous - it doesn't spin down the drive just before ejecting it! Making use of the two-stage energy-button then eject seems to work, but the energy button is in a awkward location."Hot Plug" assistance is lousy - swapping an SSD without having powering off didn't send any modify notification to the OS (Linux or Win7). Employing the energy button works. This is a useful device even with some flaws.Caution is vital to generally power-cycle and be careful of insertion angle.This isn't advised as a lengthy-term storage remedy - working with a devoted external enclosure (with fan) is superior for drive health.

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Hooked up and worked out of the box. Applied it perhaps two or three times considering that August. I docked a hard drive, pressed the energy button and it would not remain on. Now I'm out the expense of freight to send it back. Here's hoping it lasts longer when it returns. Manufacturer Response:Dear Consumer,We at Thermaltake apologize for the inconvenience this may well have caused you. Please contact ttsupport@thermaltakeusa.com for warranty information.Ideal regards,

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As a techie who ends up fixing other men and women's PCs, this has develop into a valuable tool. Now folks can bring me their challenging drives for testing. I can also format new drives before placing it in it's destined bay. Ideal of all, I can have as many storage drives I want with no getting to acquire an enclosure for each 1.It looks good, my technological toaster. My toaster's eSATA connector is wobbly eSATA calls for a power connector, so you just can't just use a SATA to eSATA cable. Don't let the 1.5gb/s dissuade you, do your investigation. See Laptop or computer Expert's review on the front page.

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I bought this docking station because of the eSATA function and the price with MIR was cheap. It is pretty convenient for transferring files from hard drive to hard drive and also for my PS3.

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Docking station works fine. Just be careful inserting the difficult drive and monitor the cooling for the drive. They tend to get hot. longer cables both ac and usb

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great concept looks low-cost construction Didn't perform for my ATA drives. Manufacturer Response:Hi Tech Proff,This product is created for two.five" & 3.five" SATA HDDs only. This details can be found on the specification page. Very best regards,

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Has both USB and eSATA connections! Hot-swappable! This is a fantastic remedy if you have any need to have to transfer information from 1 device to yet another. Construction for the most part is solid (see cons for the not so solid), and nothing screams geek to your friends additional than a half exposed difficult drive. USB and energy connections are a little loose (-1 egg). Not a excellent answer for lengthy term storage (as it leaves most of the drive exposed), but then once again, it never was intended to be. I work for a main personal computer repair chain, and we use these to handle information transfers all the time. I was so impressed with their reliability (while other data transfer cables broke all the time) that I got one for myself to upgrade my residence-server. If your laptop or computer died, or even if your challenging drive is in a mild state of failure, this is the perfect remedy to saving your files.

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Dependable. Works with nearly any typical SATA HDD, both desktop or laptop drives. I bought this model in March of 09, and it has been employed to access in all probability over 50 various drives in that time. Not positive why individuals complain about the transfer rates for USB on this, but I have not had an issue, though I have also utilised it with e-sata on occasion. My primary use is temporary storage of DVD images with a 500GB Barracuda 7200.10 Seagate 3.five" drive. Works great, can watch and copy to it with no a problem with performance at all. Design might allow the possibility of contaminants into the internal SATA connector as it sits upright. USB two. may not be quickly sufficient for some individuals. It will not do SATA 6 speeds, or USB 3 speeds of course.It spins down the drive after a few minutes if the drive supports it, to save energy. This can be annoying to some if they don't like to wait for the drive to spin up just before they can access it and no way to alter it. Some models of drives run hotter than other people, and even though this sits out in open air, if you are going to use a drive that produces much more heat, I would suggest a fan to preserve it cool.Though it will support hot disconnect/reconnect in a sense, do not do this. Be sure to use the safely disconnect hardware initially (or eject in 7) then power it down then eliminate the drive. If it won't let you, shut down the technique, power down the unit, THEN remove the drive. Prevents drive corruption and other issues. Comes with a short USB cable, but uncomplicated to get a longer o I use this for my own stuff, as properly as recovering information from laptops or computers that died, as it just makes the job simpler. So it gets well applied, I have taken it with me to a consumer to do the work on location, so it gets around. Nice heavy base, so it doesn't vibrate or move about on the desk. Mine sits on the back of my tower generally. Get 1, you won't be disappointed. If you do get a bad one (as I see some have gotten DOA's), send it back and get one more. Often bad ones occur. I just ordered me 1 of the non-e-sata models to see how it does, along with a 2TB drive..

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Does everything you could ask and it's built like a tank. Don't forget to power down just before ejecting...

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none died after three days of light usage

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I'm a fan of the thought and the device speed. Very flexible & convenient. Was loving this item until the power switch died on me. It will not stay depressed. Bummed.

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Worked wonderful - whilst it worked Power switch broke 2 months in. Thermaltake customer service is horrible. Apparently Ű shipping is a lot more vital to them than a repeat customer. Won't get Thermaltake merchandise once more. Better companies out there that know how to take care of their prospects and stand behind their item. Not a newegg fault, just Thermaltake.

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This is a great dock. I bought it to replace my older BlackX USB-only dock. This one has USB as well as eSATA. A great design. Can easily swap hard drives in and out, whether they are 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch.

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Got it on sale, does what it's supposed to do with minimum of fuss. I used it to swap out hard drives on my PS3 and it did it's job. Worked fine on my Win7 64.

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This is a very useful tool for troubleshooting, archiving, cloning, and whatever else you can think of. You'll get great speeds via eSATA, and you can still use it via USB on legacy systems. Physically it's well built, and the eject mechanism will probably last a long time. Although as everyone else has said, it was a bad design choice to include a poorly-attached light, shaped like a button, exactly where you would expect a button to be. Removing a few screws will allow you to properly hot-glue this back in place after someone (not me I swear!) tries to press it and it breaks off.Three minor changes would make this product amazing:-Combine the power button/activity light!-Add a separately-hinged dust cover over the 2.5" opening, since that's where the connectors actually are.-Add socket to attach a power molex. If you're using eSATA, you probably have external power available. No sane person wants more power bricks. This review was modfied by poster @ 12-28-10 10:00 PM

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Handy little dock for making offsite backups or plugging in sata drives on the fly for whatever reason.These come in handy and are great for quickly accessing spare hard drives lying around.They are a little nicer than the unitek sata dock I have in that they are smaller in nearly every dimension without sacrificing any stability while a hard drive is plugged in and running. I have purchased and recommended these docks to friends and family who also wish to do offsite backups.

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This is a great enclosure for the price, supports both 2.5/3.5 in which is great for me potentially having to backup peoples hard drives on desktops or laptops. Literally took out of the box, hooked up the power adapter and usb, put in my old 80GB Seagate hard drive powered it on and windows installed the drivers within seconds and i was able to view my old files. I recommend getting this product.

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The convenience of this thing is really great. There is always some guy with a dead computer that needs you to extract data for him, and this is the perfect solution.

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When it is on sale, it is a steal. If you need the capability to hotswap hard drives to check data or copy random amounts of data here and there, this is one of the most useful tools you could have around.