Thermaltake HDD Dock

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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With the advent of external hard drives, it is obviously easier to access data, but still it can be a pain in the ass. For those of us, and I imagine there are more than a few of you like me, that have piles of hard drives sitting around, this is what we have been waiting for. Thermaltake sent over a new advertisement this morning for the HDD Docking Station. I saw this thing and knew I wanted one immediately. Given that most motherboards today will allow you to easily hotswap hard drives, this thing is exactly what the doctor ordered. Need to access a hard drive? No problem, just stick it in the dock! No enclosures, no cabling, just data. Killer. We will give you our thoughts when we get finished abusing one, or two.
 
Nice find. Now if they could make one with options for SATA and IDE I would be truly happy. I have so many old drives in my basement I considered building a fort out of them.

Ok, maybe not that many. ;)
 
lookin good.. but i probably couldnt justify the purchase.. i already have the vantec usb adapter.. on the other hand that would be cool to have on my desk at work :D
 
Holy cow, pure brilliance! I could use two of these at work; we're always cloning laptop hard disks and it's a pain in the butt to have to open my case and hunt down two SATA cables.
 
Do these USB adapters work with RAID recovery software? I know when a RAID chip (mobo or add-in card) dies, you can usually hook up the drives to another computer and use recovery software to access the data on the array. But, can you do this with several of these USB docking stations (2 docks for RAID 0 or 1 recovery and 3+ docks for RAID 5 recovery)? If so, these would be a Godsend to data recovery when backups are inaccessible for whatever reason.
 
I could seriously use something like that for all of the ghosting I do on an almost daily basis. I currently use one of these Vantec SATA to USB adaptors, but this Thermaltake thing looks a lot more convenient.
 
this is one of those inventions that as soon as you see it, you ask yourself why nobody thought of it sooner. I'm going to order 2.

:D
 
Looks nice but only a USB 2.0 connection to the system? No thanks. e-SATA/Firewire option(s) would have been nice.
 
Exactly what I was thinking. It needs to support IDE and SATA.



Chromatik said:
Nice find. Now if they could make one with options for SATA and IDE I would be truly happy. I have so many old drives in my basement I considered building a fort out of them.

Ok, maybe not that many. ;)
Click to expand...
 
I like the idea, and the delivery of the SE w/ 4x USB is nice ... except the price. I can get an enclosure for half that ... might not be as hot swappable, but the extra $20 would buy me another enclosure.
 
Gah why didnt I think of this, great. But per above, look at this :
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=650


Worth consideration if for nothing else but the most honest no bullshit ad/description I have read in a long long time. Grammer a little off but you have to give them major points for actually saying something useful - /gasp ! I would be amazed if they both did not come out of the same factory and the Tt is a rebrand of the basic model. Be sure to look at the other models at the bottom of the ad above, the e-sata with the 4 port USB hub and a decorative cover for the removable HD is interesting and looks nicer.


Please follow as such. When plugging your new SATA HDD, make sure that it is on switch off while inserting you Hard drive in the Stage rack, then switch it on for proper usage. If, you neglect to do so, your computer might ask you to install a drive during the connection of the SATA HDD to proceed. You are not require to do so, just ignore the message and put your Hard disk in the rack for proper functioning. There is no installation drive required, it is compatible with XP, Vista, Mac…

Note: In order to keep still, the docking station has added weight this preventing the docking station to move when you are plugging in or out your HDD. This added weight is unfortunately increasing the shipping cost… We are very sorry for this inconvenient but there is nothing we can do on this matter. Thank you for your understanding.
Click to expand...
 
looks interesting... but raises two thoughts in my mind-

- Most of my drives laying around are IDE.

- Why didn't they go ahead and make it eSATA?
 
wow it looks so cool!! I want one. I can't wait to see if it works. My problem is not all drives conform the standard sizes and stuff.
 
Kyle, thanks for sharing gadgets that we would be interested in but not have heard about. The PowerMonkey is the other that recently comes to mind. I will have to pick one of these up as well.
 
Looks like a great product. Hopefully it functions as they say it will.
 
BillParrish said:
Gah why didnt I think of this, great. But per above, look at this :
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=650


Worth consideration if for nothing else but the most honest no bullshit ad/description I have read in a long long time. Grammer a little off but you have to give them major points for actually saying something useful - /gasp ! I would be amazed if they both did not come out of the same factory and the Tt is a rebrand of the basic model. Be sure to look at the other models at the bottom of the ad above, the e-sata with the 4 port USB hub and a decorative cover for the removable HD is interesting and looks nicer.
Click to expand...

look at the shipping cost:eek:
 
As others have said, there needs to be at least an IDE version.
I can see it for those doing a tape replacement but for me I just add an extra $20 and get an external case for my external SATA drives since I keep them plugged in all the time.

I have some old IDE's I would not mind having access to, but otherwise...

Cool Idea for those that can use it
 
They've been available in Japan for at least 6mo or so. I've got a pre-order on the new e-sata version from the GeekStuff4U website that people are linking to.

I'll be kicking myself soon, though, because if Thermaltake is OEM-ing them for North America, I'll be able to get one for less than half the price I paid...

:(
 
SoftScience said:
this is one of those inventions that as soon as you see it, you ask yourself why nobody thought of it sooner. I'm going to order 2.

:D
Click to expand...

'xactly


only thing is... only sata drives have the data and power connectors placed in a standardized place... in IDE drives manuf can place the connectors wherever they please
 
ssratt said:
As others have said, there needs to be at least an IDE version.
I can see it for those doing a tape replacement but for me I just add an extra $20 and get an external case for my external SATA drives since I keep them plugged in all the time.

I have some old IDE's I would not mind having access to, but otherwise...

Cool Idea for those that can use it
Click to expand...

I tend to use my Rosewill USB to SATA, IDE and laptop IDE adapter most of the time-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119152

But I have a Bytecc at work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102
 
I have a Vantec usb to ide/sata thing too, but this would look better on my desk, probably easier to use. While it would be nice to see an eSATA version too, I think they went with the usb just because everything has it. My desktop has eSATA, but my laptop does not, alot of new computers still don't have it. So I can see the reasoning for making it usb.
 
eSATA support is not yet available because not all boards or computers with eSATA ports support hot swappability. USB is readily available on any computer so it makes it more universal.

Second, this product has been in developement for a couple months and was shown at CES with two different views. The unit works flawlessly as I have one on my desktop for testing of drives that are used in the office. Plug and Play is flawless and it is very easy to use as it pops up on screen to access when you plug it in.

Also the unit has an MSRP of $39.99
 
TTjd said:
eSATA support is not yet available because not all boards or computers with eSATA ports support hot swappability. USB is readily available on any computer so it makes it more universal.

Second, this product has been in developement for a couple months and was shown at CES with two different views. The unit works flawlessly as I have one on my desktop for testing of drives that are used in the office. Plug and Play is flawless and it is very easy to use as it pops up on screen to access when you plug it in.

Also the unit has an MSRP of $39.99
Click to expand...
3 pounds... Is that right??
 
hmmm that msrp looks pretty good. I want an esata port as I have a bunch on here waiting to get used with the right product. If they can release one with both esata and usb and same msrp I will probably get one.

I think it looks purty too :D
 
I noticed that picture on the front page had a Raptor X in it. I know my Raptor X gets ridiculously hot very quickly if I don't have some kind of active cooling on it. I found that out when I initally bought it and was doing a data copy on my desk with 2 drives mounted in a removable cage so there was air space on top and bottom of the drive.
 
Snyper64 said:
I thought I have seen Thermaltake advertising one of these with both E-Sata and USB connections with a Sata hard drive. Anyways this doesn't seem to be much faster to change out than my ICY-Dock MB664 plus its better looking and easier to take to lan parties than this would be.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198020
Click to expand...

Let's think about this. Who is gonna look cooler at a LAN Party:

You with your ICY DOCK with a 300 GB drive crammed full of porn.

or

Me, with my Thermaltake HDD Docking station and a large brown paper bag full of various 20 to 80GB drives crammed full of porn, pouring them out on a table at the lan party.. clunk clunk clunk.. "Hey guys, I brought my porn along!!"

Case closed. The Thermaltake HDD Docking station is a clear winner.
 
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