Hard drive docking stations

[Ray]

Has any one had any experience of using a hard drive docking station like this one here? They seem as though they could be be useful and I'm thinking of getting one.

[Rik]

I haven't tried one, yet, Ray, but I have been thinking about getting one...

[kinmel]

Mine works fine, Sata can be hot slotted, Pata needs to be disconnected to fit HDD. You only get USB 2 speeds of course and mine also has a separate power supply, which increases electricity consumption.

[Ray]

I haven't tried one, yet, Ray, but I have been thinking about getting one...

Yes, Rik, I thought one would be useful if you've got a disk you want to check out or format etc. I use an external enclosure at the moment but they are a bit of a fiddle by the time you've removed and replaced at least 8 tiny screws and scrabbled about on the floor trying to find the one that you inevitably drop  .

[Rik]

The old 'missing screw' search. I know it well.

[Ray]

Well I've just taken the plunge and ordered one. 

[Rik]

Keep us posted, Ray.

[Ray]

Keep us posted, Ray.

Will do, Rik. 

[Sebby]

Looks good - I've never seen such a device before.

[Steve]

I think I need one  My usual method of checking a drive is to attach it to another PC this would save a lot of hassle.There are a few more varieties on Amazon

[Ray]

My Hard Disk Docking Station has just arrived  looks good can be connected by USB or esata, it's also got 2 USB ports and an SD card reader slot as well, haven't tried a hard drive in it yet that'll have to wait until my replacement arrives from Seagate. 

[Rik]

I'll be interested to hear what you think, Ray. Will you go the eSata route?

[Ray]

I'll be interested to hear what you think, Ray. Will you go the eSata route?

I'll use USB most of the time, Rik, I've only got one machine that's got external eSata ports on the MB.

[Rik]

If you ever get a chance to compare, I'd be interested to hear what kind of speed differences you notice.

[Ray]

If you ever get a chance to compare, I'd be interested to hear what kind of speed differences you notice.

Yes, I'll let you know when I try it.

I must say I was impressed with the speed of delivery from Cclonline, I only ordered it at about 2:00pm yesterday afternoon and it turned up at about 10:30am today via RM recorded delivery. 

[Sebby]

I'll use USB most of the time, Rik, I've only got one machine that's got external eSata ports on the MB.

You want something like this, then.

[Ray]

You want something like this, then.

Just the job, Sebby, I'll have to get one the next time I order something else. 

[Lance]

I'm pretty sure that I sawthe same hard drive dock in maplin today for £40 

I'd never seen them before this thread!

[Sebby]

You probably did, Lance. I bought an IR extender off of eBay for £10 that they sell for £25 in Maplins!

[Rik]

Maplin were pushing them in a newsletter on Friday.

[Sebby]

The IR extenders?

[Rik]

The drive holders.

[Sebby]

Ah.

[Ray]

The docking station works, I've just had my replacement HD back from Seagate and used the dock to initialise and format it with no problem. 

[Rik]

That's good to know, Ray. Another item on my gadget list.

[Ray]

That's good to know, Ray. Another item on my gadget list.

Well worth having, Rik, just copied a 3.15Gb file to it via USB connection, took 1min. 50secs. to complete. 

[Rik]

Reasonable speed too. 

[Ray]

Reasonable speed too. 

I thought so, Rik, I'll have to try it on my other machine with the eSata ports and see what the difference is.

[Rik]

That should be very fast, or so I've been told.

[Sebby]

Yep, should be significantly quicker.

[Ray]

Well I've tried it with the eSata connection and it moved the same 3.15GB file in 55secs.

[Rik]

Not as much speed gain as I would have expected, Ray, but twice as fast is not to be sneezed at for all that.

[Ray]

Not as much speed gain as I would have expected, Ray, but twice as fast is not to be sneezed at for all that.

No it wasn't, Rik, I thought it would be more than that still quite good though.

[Rik]

If my maths is right, SATA is notionally five times faster than USB, but perhaps there are limitations due to the external connection?

[Rik]

Just found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Some single disks can transfer almost 120 MB/s during real use,[4] more than twice the maximum transfer rate of USB 2.0

[Ray]

Just found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Interesting read, Rik, looks like in the real world they are about 2 to 3 times faster.

I've just run HDTune on the disk in my main PC which is an identical Sata II disk with results below: -



[attachment deleted by admin]

[Rik]

Bring back SCSI, I say.

[Sebby]

There's certainly something to be said for SCSI. Still, I think SATA was a good step forward.

[Ray]

USB 3 is supposedly the next big step forward see here

[Sebby]

Interesting. Thanks, Ray.

[Steve]

Certainly fits in with my impression of eSATA over USB 2, sustained rates are about twice as fast ,certainly worth it if transferring large amounts of data in go. i.e several 100 Gb

[Sebby]

I have my Western Digital MyBook connected via FireWire, incidentally. Although the theoretical maximum transfer rate is less than USB 2.0, it's actually faster.

[Steve]

Biggest nuisance with eSATA I find is its not "hot" pluggable in or out(cached data)

[Steve]

Same drive in Vista slightly quicker  but may be running in a different mode i.e AHCI which can be used in XP but  I found it tedious to install but plenty of instructions are around if its an intel controller and in the real world probably doesnt make a jot of difference

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Steve]

2x 3500320AS Raid0 for comparison

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Sebby]

Same drive in Vista slightly quicker  but may be running in a different mode i.e AHCI which can be used in XP but  I found it tedious to install but plenty of instructions are around if its an intel controller and in the real world probably doesnt make a jot of difference

I thought XP installs the drivers when you install it, so long as AHCI mode is enabled in the BIOS?

[Steve]

That method didn't work for me Sebby, the last XP install I did with AHCI enabled in bios failed even with F6 additional driver input I had to resort to something similar to this I only persisted as that machine was dual boot with Vista already working in AHCI mode. Not sure what the advantages are though? Native Command Queuing and the ability to hot plug neither of which would make life any different for me.

[Steve]

WD 1TB in eSATA and  USB2 modes on Scaleo WHS, I presume the difference in cpu activity is related to the method mode of transfer

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Rik]

Or just the overhead of USB, Steve? Certainly, USB compares better than I would have expected.

[Steve]

I think I need one  My usual method of checking a drive is to attach it to another PC this would save a lot of hassle.There are a few more varieties on Amazon

I'm destined not to get one,ordered from Amazon Saturday>fine, Courier City Link -oh dear. I'm in Tuesday am no sign of it ,apparently attempted delivery @3.10pm (dog ate most of the slip of paper ) I didn't ring to rearrange delivery as wasn't sure when in next. Yesterday am just as I was thinking of phoning them to arrange re delivery found another delivery notice which had arrived whilst I was in the house presumably in the shower at the time. So check the website allegedly they tried on the Wednesday as well.

So this item will go back to Amazon who do not charge a restocking fee or failed delivery fee as I am not going on a 60 mile round trip to pick up an item worth £20

I do try to avoid City Link but failed this time.

[Lance]

Give them a ring, Steve and ask for another delivery - they should be happy to help.

[Steve]

They rang me today and we decided upon an alternative delivery address

[Lance]