SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay-Flat Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP] (EC-DFLT)

Works exactly as described. Easy to use.

I bought the Sabrent ED-DFLT enclosure so that I could format various hard drives on my iMac. It's a rather long story, which I'll shorten to this: I confirmed that the Sabrent enclosure worked when I received it by using an old 2TB drive. I then tossed the box and waited for my 6TB Western Digital Caviar Green drive to arrive from Amazon a couple of weeks later. When plopped into the Sabrent, the new drive showed up on my Mac's desktop. I then set about creating a large encrypted disk image on the drive. It chugged away for 4 full days, seemingly working for the first 3. But after day 4, the formatting was clearly hung, and it had taken my Mac down with it. Upon rebooting, the drive no longer showed up at all. Disk Utility could not even see it. After a lot of detective work, too long to describe here, I confirmed that the 6TB drive was still working fine, but the Sabrent logic board had died, obviously a case of infant mortality. The good news: it can handle large capacity hard drives. The bad news: not for very long... And of course, since I tossed the boxing, there is no returning the Sabrent. I therefore spent $23 on a brick, although it won't break me. This case of infant mortality is probably just a fluke, but an annoying one when it happens to you. I should have kept the box a while longer. My bad. UPDATE 1/2118: To Sabrent's great credit, and this is going back about 2.5 years ago, they stepped in and replaced the enclosure, no charge. I tested it but ran into issues trying to do the above formatting again, and threw it on my junk pile. With hindsight, I'm now realizing that the issue was most likely the hard drive I was using, which I got by ripping open a Western Digital external hard drive and removing it. There's something odd about the firmware in these drives. They're just "not right" when taken out of their manufacturer's shell and fully exposed like this. I think my issue was the hard drive, and NOT Sabrent. Coupled with their excellent customer service, I've now increased the rating to five stars. Because ... I just bought some 8TB Hitachi hard drives and it was time to format them, again with encryption. These are new, bare hard drives from Amazon, not something I ripped out of an external HD box! Fortunately, I still had the Sabrent enclosure, so I pulled one off the pile, attached the 12V/1.5A power adapter to it, put the 8TB drive in, connected to my Mac Mini, and just like that, the hard drive mounted on the desktop. I formatted it in HFS+, then created a new encrypted disk image, and let it run. This time, all went well. I discovered that if you open Sierra's Activity Monitor and click on Disk Activity, you get a readout of how fast the data is moving across the interface. I was seeing it move between 110 - 160 MB/sec, averaging about 130 MB/sec. That's not bad at all on my 2012 iMac with a 4-core i7 processor running Sierra (12.6). It's not the fastest i7 there is, so you have to remember that there are calculations that first have to be made before the data can be spit out of the USB3 ports for writing. That takes time to execute, which has to slow transfers down somewhat. USB of any speed never hits its theoretical maximum anyway (4.8Gbps for USB3, or about 600 MB/sec). Considering I was getting only 25 MB/sec with USB2 on this same machine (theoretical maximum speed = 60 MB/sec), actual speeds are less than theoretical speeds by about the same factor for each version of USB. The full 8TB of writing took 17 hours, which averages out to 130 MB/sec, consistent with what I see in Activity Monitor. I would say that's pretty good. I'm happy. Side note: I got to wondering about Sabrent's advice to run a firmware update. I'm a Mac guy, but I have an old PC running XP. I thought I would take a stab at the upgrade. I downloaded it to the PC, but the update would not run at all. You tell it to RUN the update and nothing happens. My neighbor has a PC running Windows 10, so I took the dock, power supply, and a USB cable to his place. He downloaded the update to his PC, followed the .pdf instructions exactly, the interface presented is NOT what the .pdf shows, but tried running it anyway. Same issue: hit the RUN button and nothing happens. It doesn't freeze or anything like that. It simply does nothing. So much for that! The key point I'm making is that this same dock that I bought 2.5 years ago (August 2015) easily sees my 8TB drives, runs flawlessly, and runs quite fast, all with no firmware update whatsoever. I don't understand Sabrent's statement that older docks (2.5 years old?) without an update are limited to 4TB. Not mine! I do not understand why other commenters can't get it to work right. It works perfectly for me. Considering Sabrent's great customer support, excellent USB3 performance, full support for an 8TB drive, and it's very low price, I gotta give it 5 stars! UPDATE 1/30/2018: Plugging into two different iMacs running Snow Leopard (10.6.8), neither can see any drive plugged into it. Odd, since at one time it could/did. I don't know what the difference is, but if you're running Snow Leopard, you might consider passing on the Sabrent. UPDATE 2/12/2018: Okay, so the Sabrent isn't happy with Snow Leopard. Separately, I plugged the Sabrent into my 2012 Mac Mini w/i7 processor and running Sierra (12.6). I plugged a second, different external USB3 drive enclosure to another port, loaded a pair of 8TB X300 Toshiba hard drives in each, and proceeded to move data from one drive to the other. Measured speed is about 130 MB/sec, which is about max transfer rates that these hard drives can deliver. No complaints!

It’s everything they said, works great

I had a difficult time getting the docking station to work. At first I thought it was software, but I finally figured it out - the old hard drive I installed worked itself loose from the internal docking port when I moved it. It works fine now, however, I make it a point not to move the enclosure. I realized that there is no locking mechanism or detent in the docking station to keep the hard drive fully engaged and securely pinned into the SATA port. I discovered that moving the enclosure can loosen the drive from the pin port, thereby disconnecting the drive from the computer. The design should be revised to include a cam locking mechanism similar to Sarbrent's docking station for SSD (which I have had for several months and works well). Otherwise, I would give the docking station 5 stars.

This is a great product for when you need fast (but not constant) access to a variety of different SATA hard drives in which putting them in a permanent fixture would be kind of a pain due to constant swapping. This is a TRUE plug-and-play device, and it plays nice with multiple operating systems. With a USB 3 interface, this enclosure maintains high-sustained read/write speeds, which means less waiting for your data to copy over. However, this is NOT a good permanent drive for most Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) due to the sustained temperatures that can be generated, and the lack of active cooling devices. ---------- TERMS I will use a few abbreviations here... --HDD - Hard Disk Drive - that is, a hard drive that has a disk that physically spins rapidly, usually between 4,200-7,500 RPM --SSD - Solid State Drive - that is, a hard drive that uses flash memory like that used on USB flash drive (i.e., no moving parts) --SATA - Serial ATA - that is, the interface used to connect a hard drive to the computer internally or an enclosure externally --USB - Universal Serial Bus - the port used to connect this external drive to your computer & the most common computer port used today (there are three different generations: 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, each which offer increasingly faster data transfer speeds) ----------------------- EASE OF USAGE & ACCESSIBILITY This enclosure accepts both 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch hard drives, provided the drive uses a SATA interface (ex: if the hard drive uses IDE/PATA or SAS, it will not fit the SATA port on this enclosure.) Usage of this enclosure is simple. More or less, you lift up the flap on the enclosure, connect the hard drive to the SATA port, plug the USB cable (and, depending on the drive, power cable) into the unit, and plug it into the computer for fast-access plug and play. (Obviously, the way the hard drive is formatted/journaled will determine just how much you can do with it on a specific operating system.) Being capable of working with USB1.1, USB2, and USB3, this drive will work with a wide range of computers (both old and new), and it plays well with both Windows and OS X. While there are many USB 3 devices that do not deliver speeds as high as expected, this enclosure delivers excellent sustained read/write speeds (when paired with a higher speed hard drive, of course.) --------------------------------- LIMITATIONS & EXCESSIVE HEAT WITH CONSTANT HDD USAGE While this is great enclosure for intermittent usage and infrequent backups, it is NOT the best choice for constant usage, especially with the higher speed HDDs. The case does NOT seal out dust/debris, does not lock closed, does not give any sort of shock/impact damage protection, provides no magnetic shielding, and has no cooling system built-in. So especially with high-speed HDDs, it can get extremely hot. Heat can be a major catalyst of premature failure of spinning disk hard drives (mind you, not the biggest). An hour of usage with an older 10,000 RPM WD Raptor I have saw tremendous heat generation. And while that is perfectly fine for intermittent usage, this is too much heat for frequent or prolonged usage, and given this enclosure is mainly plastic, it just doesn't dissipate this heat all that well. So with higher RPM HDDs that you plan to use frequently/constantly, a dedicated enclosure with some shock protection and a cooling fan/heat sinks is probably a better choice. (With a SSD, none of the above is much of a concern.) ------------- OVERALL Overall, this is a great product. It manages to work well with a wide range of drives and on a wide range of systems. It's reasonably well built, versatile, and affordable. When you buy a new computer and need to transfer old data over, this enclosure offers a huge convenience over other methods. If you need an enclosure that offers you fast-access to numerous different 3.5 and 2.5 inch SATA hard drives, this is a great choice.

I like this machine because it works well. No need to open up your computer to install a hard drive. Simply connect this device to a USB port and power outlet. Then, turn on your computer and slide in a hard drive. Great for using extra storage to free up your internal drives. Voilà you're in business!

The docking station worked seamlessly with both my computer and the old drive I was externally connecting. It was very straightforward to install the hard drive in the dock, and I was easily able to fully back up 2 TB of data. The enclosure is sturdy, and I like the transparent cover as it allows me to easily see the drive that's inserted. Overall I am very pleased with this product as it performs as advertised and at a reasonable price point.

システムのバックアップには最適です。排熱も問題ないと思いますが、最近は気温が高いのでそのへんは各自調整していくのが良いでしょう。なにより、引っ越しソフトウェアがダウンロード可能なのが良好。使いながらレビュー追加していきます。

Excellent drive bay

Ho acquistato questa docking station Sabrent per recuperare alcuni dati da vecchi hard disk che avevo nel cassetto e devo dire che fa esattamente quello che promette, senza complicazioni. ​Prestazioni e Facilità d'uso: La cosa migliore è la semplicità: è un dispositivo Plug & Play a tutti gli effetti. Basta inserire il disco (che sia un SSD da 2.5" o un HDD meccanico da 3.5"), collegare il cavo USB 3.2 e il PC lo riconosce all'istante. Supportando il protocollo UASP, le velocità di trasferimento sono ottime e stabili, ideali per spostare grandi quantità di GB senza attese infinite. ​Design e Qualità Costruttiva: A differenza di altre docking station "aperte", questa ha un design orizzontale molto stabile. La scocca è in plastica robusta e il meccanismo di inserimento è fluido. Apprezzo molto il LED di stato che indica l'attività del disco, così evito di scollegarlo mentre sta ancora lavorando. ​Perché sceglierla: È lo strumento ideale per chi fa manutenzione ai PC o semplicemente vuole trasformare un vecchio hard disk interno in un'unità esterna in pochi secondi. Non scalda eccessivamente e non richiede driver particolari. ​Pro: ​Compatibile con dischi da 2.5 e 3.5 pollici. ​Velocità USB 3.2 (supporta UASP). ​Stabile sulla scrivania e semplicissima da usare. ​Contro: ​Il cavo USB in dotazione è buono, ma avrei preferito fosse leggermente più lungo per una gestione dei cavi più pulita. ​In sintesi: Un accessorio indispensabile da avere nel kit di ogni smanettone. Rapporto qualità-prezzo eccellente, come spesso accade con i prodotti Sabrent.

Très bon produit