Hardware question; HDD Docking Station:

[wtsinnc]

Hi;

I'm thinking about buying a Hard Drive Docking Station such as this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153066

Does anyone here have any experience with a docking station?
It doesn't have to be a Thermaltake model; in fact, I'm still open to the brand. I'm just looking for something that works as advertised.

Thanks in advance.

[ahriman]

I have this BlakX docking station. It works perfectly with my Raptor and Caviar drives.

[axial]

I have a Vantec brand "NexStar" that's pretty much the same as the one you linked. It's been fine, although only used it for occasionally, nothing intensive. I've always wondered how gummed up this "open box" style of connectors would get for those with cats/dogs in the room. Another concern is how much more vulnerable the open drive might be to transient static.

btw, depending on your O/S you may have issues with the hot swapping; there seem to be many, many issues with WinXP, at least. If you find that the swapped drive isn't being recognized be sure to post here again as there are several utils to get SATA drives rescanned, e.g. using the MS utility DevCon,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

[wtsinnc]

Thanks ahriman and axial.

As of now, I'm still undecided as to the overall usefulness versus a standard external enclosure. I own two Bytecc enclosures with a built-in fan and ATA/SATA compatibility and they work perfectly.
Obviously, the ability to quickly substitute hard drives is a desirable feature, but is that alone worth the money ?

Again, thanks for the feedback.