It's amazing, really, that this meme has lasted this long. When we first noticed Brando's
SATA HDD Dock, we figured it was destined to become a cute, one-off gift that only the hardest of hardcore storage freaks would bother with. Over a year later, we're having trouble
counting the
iterations available. Now, we've got storage mainstay NewerTech diving in with one of its own, as it has just revealed the quad-interface Voyager SATA hard drive docking station. As you'd expect, the unit turns any 2.5- or 3.5-inch SATA I / II hard drive (up to 2TB) into an external drive, and with FireWire 400 / 800, USB 2.0 and eSATA sockets, you shouldn't have any issue hooking it up. It's available now for stocking stuffing at $99.95.
posted Dec 2nd 2008 4:12PM
FireWire 400? What a bag of hurt.
I kid, I kid!
Bit expensive but can be useful if you've not got the space in your case. (Ryhmes)
Yeah, why don't I go eat some hay. I can make things out of clay, or lay by the bay, I just may. Whaddya say?
I say You took it to Serious-Lay.
I fail
Like a whale.
Dude. Never crack a joke again
But that doesn't rhyme
You failed to rhyme like a lime.
it does if you say it in pig latin...
Pigs can't learn latin.
(Joke dtectors to stun)
i got thermal take blacx same thing tough and it only coast me 50 bucks at best buy
it very very usefully and now that own one i can say i would pony up the hundred bucks for one
but then again a good part of my work is people bring me damage hard drive and asking me to to retrieve personal data off it
so i built a linux system using bactrac 3 just for that purepose and that all i really use for
it been handy as hell
i also bought a second one i use on my personal computer in house i tossed an 300gb hard drive in it and use like a backup drive but it nice to be able just swap out another drive for when i cant sleep and decide to work in bed
this is shredder for data :D perfect thing :D
$100 stocking stuffer? Damn. Where do I get a Santa like that?
The orphanage.
You're not using the word "meme" correctly.
Yeah, the meme meme jumped the shark.
Is it really quad-interface? Isn't saying FireWire 400/800 like saying USB 1.0/2.0?
No. 800 is a seperate type of port. Generally an extra 50-100 bucks more to have 800 on a hard drive.
Yes, because Apple didn't learn anything from the SCSI connector fiasco and didn't design a forward-thinking port in the first place. Meanwhile, USB is on its third generation with the same port (with USB 3 being backward-compatible).
And who was the moron who invented eSATA, a recent interconnect with NO PROVISION FOR POWER?
The current state of high-performance interconnects is pretty sad, what with Apple giving up on FireWire and no real replacement coming up. And no, USB is not a replacement for FireWire. USB is for mice, modems, and keyboards; not mass storage.
I bought the BlacX one with eSata when it was on sale. Use the eSata with my MBP. I love it. It's so nifty. I'd love one with Firewire 800 but it's 3 times the price. They're cool though.
@Patriks7: Funny, :-P ;-)
That's kindof nifty, I'd have no need for one now, but there's definitely been times in the past where I couldv'e used another external harddrive and didn't have one, except for a harddrive from an old broken PC.
A "usb to ide/sata adapter" comes to mind, and it comes with a power supply on the side for $25... 24-32 MB a sec up and down you can find it anywhere, i use it allot. But if you want it stationary then $75 or a leg don't hurt.
Apple Time Capsule
nope
Not even a little bit.
So, uh, where's this mythical 2TB 3.5" drive they seem to think exists?
And if I'm wrong I want a link to somewhere where I can buy it.
I love these things. I'm using one this very moment to scan someone's 2.5" drive that they carelessly got infected with something that knocked out their McAfee.
What's so weird about this? Drives are cheap and fill quickly with multimedia files. Buying inexpensive drives to use with a dock makes perfect sense to me.
LOL at antivirus software.
APPLE APPLE APPLE APPLE APPLE.
'nuff said.
uh, no. not 'nuff said, sorry.
@regis:
today's news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7760344.stm
Regis:
Mac's do get virus's just not as much. I hate that flippin argument by Apple fanboys.
Actually of monumental usefulness if you spend much of any time cloning drives (or upgrading HDDs for clients in-place).
Wouldn't mind one myself, but if I try to hint at this for my wife to get me for Christmas, I'm frightened of what I might wind up with ;-)
I've got a Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Duo II for up to two harddrives with 2 x eSATA (3 Gbps) and 1 x USB2 connectivity. Works great. Highly recommended. I don't care much for USB or FireWire though, I strictly use it with eSATA.
I really like the dock style of these things.
If these things are to expensive for people, similar devices can be had for less. We use some at work that support 2.5 and 3.5 IDE and all SATA I/II. It is just a cable device with the connectors and if you search around, you can pick them up for about $20 or so.
Make it a quad HDD bay, cut the price by 1/3, and we might just be so gracious to bestow consideration on your insignificant existence.
$100 for an external hard disk enclosure, minus the enclosure? Great for some i'm sure but i'll be passing on this.
I have something like this that I picked up from Best Buy.. works great with my laptop! I found out the hard way that the FreeAgent Desktop drives have cheap USB connectors that break easily... so I had to crack the case and use one of these to get to all my info. Will probably just buy a NAS/drobo at some point though.
I've got three of these, love them.
doesn't thermaltake manufacture and market this exact enclosure?
These are great and all, and we use 'em at the shop, but what we REALLY need is a PATA compatible one. So many people have older systems that we need to get the info off of, and one's like the Newertech USB cable version is just a mess o' wires and such.
Why would you guys (engadget) think this would be a one-off oddity? It sounds like a fucking awesome idea to me, I know I and many friends have bare HDDs lying around and it's a pain to swap out the connections to even just check what's on them.
You can get a USB 2.0 only version of this with two bays for only $50 from Newegg. Won't be nearly as fast, of course, so if you use it for a lot of cloning or the like the extra $50 may be worth it, but otherwise...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817996002
You don't think this is useful? And you guys run a tech site?
Are you kidding?
I find the HDD to USB adapters dont actually work very well with any sort of damaged drive. Basically they just wont mount. Yoyo, were your ones not that badly damaged, or do these new dock adapters work better?
Useful but too expensive. I'll buy one if it's $49
They should make a motorized front loading version for the 5 1/4 inch bay. It would sell like hot cakes.
One thing I never got about these things: why not buy a external enclosure for 20-30 bucks, sve your self the money and protect the hard drive better than touting around a bare hard drive that could easily be damaged. Seriously though, how its this practical, its not like its a hub for flash drives or external drives, you stick a bare HDD in it and away, well great but not a great idea to be swapping bare metal contact HDD's in and out. Hard Drive enclosures were made for a reason lol. When you HDD breaks, don't cry to this company.
:)
sorry for ranting.
ProfessorKaos:
Have you actually used one of these docks? I have the Thermaltake Blacx eSATA/USB dock, and it is easily the best storage-related purchase I've made all year. I have all sorts of other enclosures (trayless or otherwise, toolless or otherwise), but the Blacx is the most robust, convenient, reliable and fastest method I have of connecting a SATA hard drive to my computer. I'd love to have one of the dual-slot versions.
Best $179 I've spent in awhile. Had a 2 TB RAID suddenly go bad. Popped both drives in the dock and discovered that the HDs were fine but the drive enclosure had failed. Could have gotten away w/the USB version but Other World Computing had a special - dock w/1TB drive (purchased in case one or both of the HDs died) for $179 after rebate. Since I use a Mac at home and PC at the office, nice to have FW and USB.
To Professor Kaos (and anyone interested), the SATA port is solid, the dock enclosure for the 2.5 or 3.5 drive is snug (not a lot of wiggle room), and the usual HD removal protocols should be followed according to the directions (safely remove for Windows, drag to trash for Mac).
Forgot to mention that I did try Newer Technologies' Universal Drive Adapter on both drives at first - both came up DOA.
@traycer replying to my post:
Bare HDD is the worst, what are you talking about? Yes, lets scratch the copper connections or sata connections on the drive remove all protection from static charge you carry on yourself among many other things. Sorry, but you are fool.
Traycer: also a 20 dollar adapter from Vantac that does the same thing in cord form is much more practical. Do research sheesh.
now if they only also make a IDE version then i get can rid of all those usb converter adapters.