Brando's fun lovin' SATA HDD dock / stereo speaker / USB hub
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted April 6th 2009 10:04AM
posted April 6th 2009 10:04AM
Brando, known for its zany USB gadgets (and for playing Superman's father Jor-El) is back on the scene with a combination SATA HDD dock / stereo speaker / USB hub. This might not come with the laugh appeal of, say, the Buffalo USB speakers -- and it may not tell you the temperature at your desk -- but if you don't mind one of these ugmos cluttering up your workstation we're sure you'll be able to put it to good use. Features include: compatibility with both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard disks, two USB 2.0 ports, USB audio, three watt stereo speakers (with "rich timbre"), and volume control.Yours for a smooth $59.
Great idea. A HDD dock with a couple of magnets in it.
but at least is cheap.
I have the thermaltake BlacX e-sata dock.
Does anyone know why you have to always right click in hardware manager and "scan for new hardware" to get the computer to see the inserted hard drive?
I thought these were supposed to be hot swappable. Is it because am NOT using achi in bios? am using ide.
"Is it because am NOT using achi in bios? am using ide."
Maybe. AHCI allows hot swapping to be used with SATA drives.
Your knowledge of magnets and hard-drives = fail.
Unless they were 5" drivers, you're a-ok.
Isn't having a vibrating speaker attached to an HDD a bad idea?
Probably, but laptops put speakers pretty close to their hard drives too. It definitely does affect performance and they have to design for it.
Not that bad. Think about when you put a laptop down on a table or even fumble it around, while the hard drive is running. Moving a laptop around or shutting the lid causes a lot more vibration then those tiny speakers will.
Haha a culmination of the above comments =
vibrating, magnetic HDD dock
Hard drives aren't as delicate as you'd think. I dropped one down stairs and it worked fine for years (obviously it wasn't running at the time). I doubt those speakers cause much vibration. Also hard drives are very well shielded against magnets.
Hagrun has a good point. HDDs must be at sheilded, to some extent from magnets. In a laptop the HDD is never that far from the speakers, and this dosen't cause any issues.
SOLD!! i have the thermaltake one but this is way better and looks slick.
Thanks
Rich timbre, my ass. Why doesn't my toothbrush have a speaker in it yet? I demand speakers in everything just because it can be done!
Actually, there are toothbrushes here in the UK (they might not sell them any more) that play a song through your jawbone while you brush your teeth...
Check your local pharmacy, I saw some at CVS.
Would there happen to be a dual SATA HDD dock available? Now I might be interested in that!
Sweet throw in a vanity mirror and I'm sold!
My pc case vibrate all the time because of fu**ed up ventilator and nothing happened with my 4 hdd... I don't know how about magnets. in movies they kill hdd :D
These HD docks are awesome. As a repair person I can hook these up and pop a drive to attempt to recover data also makes it a good tool to hook up a external hd to a laptop.
Guys, take apart an old drive. There are VERY VERY strong magnets inside every drive. Several of them.
It's a magnetic medium...of course they have magnets in there for read/write purposes. It's when you throw in outside magnets that things have the potential to get weird.
Though I've personally never seen a harddrive exposed to a strong enough magnet to mess it up...
okkay.. but why the speaker?
Excuse my ignorance, but wtf is an "ugmo"?
*resists the urge to throw in a "your mama" joke*
Thanks, that was very helpful. ;)
If there are any other curious folks out there, I've figured it out: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ugmo.
lol @ you guys thinking that these tiny speaker magnets will destroy hard drive data....
Interesting idea for say, a nettop or other expansion-deprived computer system.
Useful tip:
I've been using a different eSATA dock and hot swaps of drives didn't work out as I first expected they might. For instance, if you just power down the dock to flip in a new drive, things go kinda crazy. In my case, Windows didn't offer a native "Eject this device" option for eSATA drives.
So there's a wicked little utility called HotSwap! that'll add a Remove Devices icon to your taskbar:
http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm
Best way to manage this that I've found so far. Perhaps Win7 will come with this functionality, but the beta is missing it right now.
Now if only they had a way to plug in a CD, DVD, or BD drive. It would be perfect for my samsung NC10 :)
You could probably just get a male to female SATA connector, stick it where the HDD is, get a SATA cable, and hook 'er up. (along with power from the hub)
Or use a USB CD/DVD/BD drive.
Not bad item for the price, does it cook popcorn too?
i dont like that its not covered at all.
say my idiot cousin comes from the bathroom, barely towels his hands after washing them, comes here, and waves his hands, spraying droplets across the room..
it wouldnt do anything to anything else.. i just quickly wipe my monitor and keyboard and speakers.. but itd probably fuck the hard drive in an instant.
Why doesn't this have a microphone for skype. Then I would buy it!
Brando's got was SATA HDDs crave.
It's got electrolytes!
I like money. And Starbucks!
Electrolytes are good for hard drives!
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