Well constructed external USB3.0 to SATA drive bay

[Dmitri]

Can someone please recommend me a decent USB3\Esata sata drive bay. I have a whole bunch of 7200 drives I need to use with my laptop. It seems all the external drive bay products I buy break after a few weeks use. The construction is terrible on these things.

I have two currently, both brands I presumed were decent.
A Welland Leopard (http://www.welland.com.tw/html/USB3.0/601S.htm) The on\off switch no longer functions. I've taped it into the on position and now power it on\off by pulling out the power plug.
Icydock MB881U3-1SA SATA/IDE USB 3.0 (http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=130) The connector to the cable on the device itself is weak and no longer works (unless the cable is propped up very carefully pushing the connector into a position where it decides to actually..connect). Rubbish.

Neither of these devices suffered abuse, they weren't moved around much essentially just sitting on my desk.

Are there any extremely durable external drive docks that someone has experience with and can recommend? I want to get years and years out of the device, not 2 months.

 

[OniFactor]

based on a teardown i did of a different enclosure, i'm liking Macally right now.. here's a USB3 one of theirs..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817347030

 

[parityboy]

I have one of these. Highly recommended. I put it in JBOD mode and let Linux handle the RAID 0 stuff.

 

[Old Hippie]

Are there any extremely durable external drive docks

Looks like he's looking for a drive dock not a drive enclosure although that particular unit is unusual and if you don't have IDE drives that's just more stuff to fail/present a problem.

OP, Icydock has a good rep. for quality and it's just the luck of the draw you got a bad one.

The Thermaltake series docking stations have always been reliable.

They have many different configurations USB/eSATA, double and single slot.

Good Luck!

 

[FuSoYa]

I'll second the Thermaltake BlacX docks. I have two of the USB 3.0 docks, one at home and one at work and have not had any problems with them.

 

[BecauseScience]

I'll second the Thermaltake BlacX docks. I have two of the USB 3.0 docks, one at home and one at work and have not had any problems with them.

Do the USB3 chips in these pass SMART commands?

 

[parityboy]

Looks like he's looking for a drive dock not a drive enclosure although that particular unit is unusual and if you don't have IDE drives that's just more stuff to fail/present a problem.

Can you clarify that part? You're right about the DS321 being unusual though, it's as solid as an enclosure and very nearly as convenient as a dock - you can hot swap drives very easily, especially if you leave the front off.

 

[Old Hippie]

Can you clarify that part?

If you're asking about the IDE comment it's exactly like I said...more stuff = more things that can go wrong.

It's just a fact of life and Murphy's Law.

Icy Dock doesn't even call it a dock......
What benefits can be found in the Icy Dock MB881U3-1SA over other HDD adapters.

He asked for a docking station and I recommended one.

 

[Dmitri]

Looks like he's looking for a drive dock not a drive enclosure although that particular unit is unusual and if you don't have IDE drives that's just more stuff to fail/present a problem.

OP, Icydock has a good rep. for quality and it's just the luck of the draw you got a bad one.

The Thermaltake series docking stations have always been reliable.

They have many different configurations USB/eSATA, double and single slot.

Good Luck!

Thanks, I'll take a look at that Thermaltake product.

I own an internal Icydock 5x 3.5 inch drive bay and it's built like a tank. It seems the minute these companies produce something that's not meant to be hidden away inside a case they get cheap and spend too much time trying to make them look pretty rather than robust.