Thermaltake ST0005U HDD Docking Station

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Bought it on sale for $19 after rebate. Excellent price assuming the rebate works out (personally, I've never had a problem with Thermaltake MIRs).Good build quality. Only downside I see is the rather short cables. The eSATA interface is a nice bonus. I love the convenience of just swapping 2.5"/3.5" HDDs without the need to install it inside a computer. Great item to carry around. Would recommend to others.

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Solid external drive docking station and easy to use. I use it for a month and no problem whatsoever.

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The unit works great. Used it with a 1TB WD Green drive and backups run speedy and completes. The only thing I would improve upon is to move the power button to the top, front or even side of the unit. It's at the rear at the moment.

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Haven't used it too much yet, but it seems to work great, Looks great, fast and with a quiet hard drive it's pretty quiet. I got a WD 1tb BLACK drive with it, and its very quiet. Someone mentioned it was loud, I guess because its open (with a loud drive), but the enclosure itself has no fans or moving parts really, so it can't be loud :)Really nice fast transfer speeds with Esata (which is why I got it) and the ability to pop in and out drive likes a toaster is really handy.The only thing I didn't like is with vista 64bit ultimate edition at least, is that I don't see a 'safely remove' this device thing like I would for a USB or Firewire external drive. I know Sata is supposed to be hot swappable, but I just want to make extra sure I'm not risking any data curuption, and there's nothing in the manual explaining best procedure for dismounting or turning off the drive! Some people in forums say you just need to hit the eject BTN and dont need to push the power btn. (Not sure if thats the best). I think you can go into administrative options / computer management / Disk Management / and disable it there but its kind of annoying to do so all the time. I got an mini ap called HotSwap!.exe that adds a 'safely remove' icon on the task bar, seems to work if anyone else is also concerned about just popping out your drive.Also I noticed one big flaw on this enclosure (on my system at least), If you power it up with no drive in it, it will freeze the computer and no way of getting it to respond unless you forcibly reboot the computer it seems. The Support line for Thermaltake sounded surprised, and offered no solution. It's not too big of a deal, I just don't power it up unless theres a drive in there. I think if you eject the drive and the powers on, it doesn't freeze... actually I might have to double check that.Overall I like the enclosure, I've been waiting for a toaster style E-SATA enclosure for a little while. It would be pretty awesome if they made one with Esata/Firewire/USB so you have all bases covered, USB is a last resort :)

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Good at what it does - for $20 after rebate this is a steal. Not using this on a daily basis but it's nice to have around if I need some swappable HD data transfer.

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Well, I pretty much stopped burning DVDs to store my data nowadays, I just get a new hdd, each time one fill up. With this dock, I can pretty much effective make a section on my shelves just for hdds, label them with what they have and just plug them into the docks when I need something

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Other than the small quirk described above (which is by far not a deal breaker, plus i use it in eSATA mode most of the time), this little gadget is perfect if you have to swap disks often (to run diagnostics, for example)

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This is an excellent piece of hardware to quickly be able to access hard drives without having to either open up your computer case and install the drive there, or open up your existing external hard drive enclosure, taking the current drive out, and installing a different one.This kit comes with everything you need(except, of course, the hard drive) to easily be able to access 2.5" or 3.5" SATA drives, and be able to use readily available USB ports, or, if you want more speed, use an eSATA port. This thing is small and light enough that portability is great, so you can use it on just about any computer.If you've got some spare hard drives sitting around, and no room to mount them, or you simply want something portable, this is an EXTREMELY handy piece of hardware!

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These are useful if you have a lot of hard drives lying around. Many other enclosures require you to remove screws or clips to swap the drive, but this one is nice and simple. If you only have one hard drive to access it won't matter, but this is great when your data is spread across many drives.The speed on eSATA is good. When tested with HD Tune the average read speed was only 4 MB/s slower than an internal drive.The only downside I see is the lack of cooling. It is only an issue if you use the same drive continuously for hours, but it could still be a problem for some users.Overall a very good product.

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I use this device for backup/swapping drive. This is incredibly useful when you have to backup customers or friend computer few time a week. Just put the drive in and you have access to it.I don't think it's should be seen as an external enclosure (noise, dust, size would be a problem), but for what I use, this is simply perfect.

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I got this to replaces a failed external case. it so far works great, and i really got nothing to complain about it other than the fact, that its a bit noisy when turned on. its wire is also a bit short so that might be a problem for someone.This is also very sturdy so its fairly safe when switching in and out the harddrives. My friend also got one also so i can share data with him with a lot less hassle than an external.This is also great since it supports 2.5IN so i can plug in the spare harddrive for my laptop. This review was modfied by poster @ 02-14-09 05:34 PM

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This is great when you have lots of different hard drives. I used to use drive enclosures, but this makes it even easier.

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This is a pretty good product. It feels fairly heavy and sturdy on my desk. I no longer have to take apart my Vantec external enclosure in order to work on a single hard drive. Also, a friend of mine has the same dock, so now it’s easy for me to stick a large amount of data on a bare 3.5 inch hard drive and bring it over to him without having to carry the bulk of an enclosure and all its associated cables. My only main complaint is that the power supply makes quite an audible high pitched whining noise when it is plugged in. I am not sure what this might indicate, but it is annoying all the same. Still a good product.

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This is a very useful product if you use many hard-drives. Just pop in the HDD of your choice and away you go. It was scary at first when the first unit died on me, but it was replaced by NCIX with no problems.Caution yourself when the drive is spinning though as the drive tilts and dislodges easily. Keep it in a safe place as there is no locking feature.I don't foresee a problem with cooling since the whole drive is exposed to the air, unlike a confined enclosure.As for the power button, it's a good thing it is in the rear since it prevents one from accidently pressing it the whilst drive is spinning. This review was modfied by poster @ 11-27-08 02:58 PM

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eSATA is about 2-3 times faster than USB 2.0 ... so as expected... this thing is a keeper.If you don't have eSATA capabilities on your computer, just buy a card... mine is a PCI-X with 2 eSATA slots and combined with this thing, it's heaven.The BlacX takes any SATA drive and turns in into storage on-the-go.It's also a GREAT help at work when you're trying to figure out what's wrong with a computer

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I have this one for several month and it`s just awesome. Excellent file transfer speed, works with large droves. I really neat alternative to burning backups and archives.Just snatched another one for my friend. Wholeheartedly recommended.

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Works great with OSX, XP, and Vista, so far. That's more than I can say about past enclosures I've tried. Sticking drives in is nice and quick, and performance is good with both USB and eSATA.Very happy I bought it!

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I've been doing some extra freelance fun work, and this little guy is a lifesaver when it comes to computers that are having boot issues... provided they haven't completely failed, you can plug it in and run all your scans neatly and quickly through the eSATA interface.The only real con is that this is an open drive and I wouldn't really recommended it over an external hard drive if you were looking for something that you could use to carry around your documents. I can see some people thinking "hey, I'll just store all my music on an internal drive and pop it in and out and save some cash over external drives". SATA(internal) isn't really designed to be continually plugged and unplugged all the time, so this is really best suited as a technical administration tool, not as a replacement for an external drive.And as a tech admin tool, it's great.

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I do a lot of work on other people's computers, and this little device makes it extremely easy for me to do stuff like virus scans, file system checks/repairs/etc very quickly and easily for any sata drive that my client's pcs have. It is very well built, both the USB and eSATA interfaces work great. I would very much recommend this product if you do much work on SATA hard drives, be them desktop or laptop drives, this thing will save you a lot of time.

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Great little thing to have around. Very quick and easy to use, just pop the HD in there, plug it in, and you're ready to go. Very sleek look too.This and the 640GB Hard Drive I bought were the same price as a 500GB external HD, and I can use any other drive in this thing too. Absolutely love it.

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This is a nice little unit to have around if you troubleshoot computers. Got tired of having to open my side panel and plugging in someone else’s drive all the time. Not sure how fast it is but I can tell it's faster than USB one. Great price at the time made this a good buy.

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I use both the esata and usb connector on this and it is flawless. I'm getting full throughput and find the product to be great.

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Great device that allows to make use of all those drives lying around. No need to buy external hard drives anymore (such as the Acom Data Puredrive 320GB i bought some time ago). I now get to choose my external drives with this docking station.

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This thing is great, it's like a 8 track player for sata drives. Copying a 700MB file to a drive inserted into it takes all of about 7 seconds, I can take and plunk a drive into it and install an OS to it as the BIOS sees it as a sata drive. The construction is quite nice especially with the dock being weighted to help make it stay put.The only complaint that I really have, and it's a small one really, is that the power switch is on the back and is kind of a pain to get at while trying to be careful not to bump the drive on the way by.For me, this is far more useful than any other conventional enclosure no more taking apart and putting back together, my desk is much less cluttered.Very happy with this purchase and would recommend to anyone.

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This is great accessory to have around if your backing data frequently or don't like having too many drives in a case. I didn't really notice anything special about this but it does what it is supose to. It would have been nicer if the power and/or the eSATA cable were longer.