SABRENT 5 bay hard drive docking station, SSD HDD 2.5 3.5 inch SATA case dock, external SSD enclosure, offline cloning, ON/OFF switches, tool-free, USB cables type A & C included (DS-SC5B)

As a laptop user, I often used external hardrives to add additional storage. Yet after breaking two within a relatively close amount of time of each other, it was time I changed it up a little bit. My issue was that my external hardrives were not suited to how I worked, and considering I wasn't always in a position to use a desk as my workspace, they often got torn out, dropped and thrown about.My plan then, was to find an alternative to my storage solution, one that wouldn't break so easily. That's when I perked some interest in hardrive docking stations, with this one in particular peaking my interest.A solid metal built contraption, this docking station by Sabrent, is all I could ask for, and then some. I went with the 4-bay option, as that's what I required, and it works exactly as intended. Hardrive installation was simple, and the durable build quality gave me assurance that my hardrives would be safe.Each bay is individually operated by its own power switch, meaning you can turn the drives on individually as and when you need them. Being that the bays are separate, means you can have multiple drives that appear as different storage devices on your computer. Just make sure to Install and Format your drives in Disk Management, otherwise they won't appear in the File Explorer.The unit itself comes with a rear fan that blows continuous cool air into the drives while at least one of them is on, but stays silent while all of them are off, even if the unit itself is on. It also works well with sleep mode as tested with my laptop.In all, while I may have lost portability, since even without hardrives the Docking Station is quite heavy, I have gained better data protection against physical breakages, which was the goal I set out to achieve. At the end of the day, if you have the budget, and need a safe way to store data, a docking station like this isn't a bad way to go.P.S. I use Seagate's 4TB Barracuda 3.5" Hardrives in my Docking Station, and they work perfectly after installation and formatting.

There has been a lot of mixed reviews on this being too loud so I took a chance I'm glad I did.Mine is super quiet my PC is louder the this device. 😂It's easy to use simply plug in and play, the device is heavy but it's smaller then box it comes.It comes with x2 USB cables a standard C-A + C-C for the more upgraded PC's.Plus x3 types of power plug*Standard Uk 3 pronged plug.* 2 pronged European plug.* 3 pronged European plug.I have loads of single HDD so cable management was is a big thing, instead of using around 10 cables it's been reduced to only 2 cables making the back of my PC my cleaner.I have had some issues with it locating some of my HDD's saying I need to reformat it I wasn't surprised by this as another customer said they had the same issue.The easiest option is to buy a new 10TB HDD install it then reformat it while it's inside the device then use the original dock or casing to copy it over.If you have loaded multiple drive slots and the power icon is on for them all but you only use say 2 of the drives the device puts the rest in a standby mode then when you want to use another one it it comes back on but it's self. Nice 👍.It was packed really well, I liked that you had to give the Amazon driver a code for them to release it so they couldn't do a dump n run like they normally do.The device led drive slots power light has 3 colors so:*Blue it is on with HDD inside.*Red for Empty drive slots.*Red/Blue for when you are copying or rewriting the HDD.I will be getting another one of these 10 bay docks and maybe a 5 bay for my dad soon I am very impressed how good this device is.

Device is solid and reliable and has usb-c for fast data transfer. Each hard drive can be turned on individually and recognised as a separate drive. RAID needs to be setup by you as this is not a NAS.The major cons are the supplied usb-c cable is way too short to position the device in a place of your choosing. Standard phone charger cables are longer. The cable is under 1 ft long.You will need an extension cable if you are space constrained or want to have a cable free look. You may even want consider using a usb hub to get this device connected.Second issue is the noise it makes from its fan. With only one hard drive installed and online the fan is on and active. It's noticeably audible through brick walls when 4 ft or less away from the wall.If you use this during the day in a home office you may be able to adjust to the noise but at night depending on your setup you may keep people up. So shut the door to keep things quiet for others and consider if you can't cope with the noise an extension cable and putting this device further away from you i.e. minimum 10+ ft away.Otherwise the device is very simple and sturdy and works as described and desired.

Awful enclosure. Though made of metal and a solid construction, the noise is like a hairdryer. With only one drive on the fan runs full power jetting out a rediculous amount of flow. Quite unnecessary for a single hdd. Very unpleasant to use.I could try to replace the fan, but why? Why should I have to immidiately start to modify a brand new product just to make it acceptable?