StarTechcom 4-Bay USB 3.0 To SATA Hard Drive Docking Station, USB Hard Drive Dock, External 2.5/3.5" SATA III SSD/HDD Docking Station, Hot-Swap Hard Drive Bay, Top-Loading (SDOCK4U33),Black

Since I always need more drive systems available I researched long & hard to find a perfect USB 3.0 external removable system for my library of hard drives.I bought this a while back and now (Aug 2018) I finally decided to do a review of it as I am pleased that it has lasted me this long.It works perfectly with every SATA harddrives though you need to be careful with the Toshiba drives as they have a bit of trouble getting out of it.I am getting good speeds copying data back & forth from it and I average between 50MB-60MB/sec with the 7200 RPM drives. Of course if you are using slower drives you will experience slower speeds.Every now and again I get the bit of vibrations noises from the drives & the unit, but this is easily remedied with a small cloth (or a 15"x15" microfiber towel) on top of the drives and put 2 hard drives on top of the cloth. Very simple noise dampener.Additionally I have this plugged into a separate 4 port USB 3.0 PCI card in the computer so as to not overwhelm the USB bus on the system and that works very well.The 4 blue LED lights are bright so you may want to put something over them if the bright lights are too much for you at night.Lastly, I strongly advise you to get a small fan to be blowing directly over the unit esp if you have all 4 bays filled up. For the 4 7200rpm drives I have in it, I see that the temps can run to 47C and higher very easily. With the fan blowing over it, the drives temps are ranging from 28-34C.----------------------------------------------------------------------Update Sept 9 2020 - as I've been using this these 3 yrs now I've only been accessing 2 or 3 of the drive bays and I thought that 1 of my hard drives had died, an older Seagate 2Tb. However I just bought 2 HGST 8TB drives and tried initializing them and I confirmed that its the rear left drive bay is now dead! I swapped around the drives while having Crystaldiskinfo, Drive Manager and Windows File Manager open as the drives are removed and re-inserted; So it lasted about 3 yrs and I just need to figure out how to work with 3 of the 4 drives. I'm now in the process of initializing and doing my Acceptance Tests for these hard drives that I just bought. They are HGST 8Tb drives I got off Ebay and they are pulled out of old servers that has something like 22,000 hrs on it (3+ yrs). Crystaldiskinfo is only showing 11 Power Ups cycles on them so that confirms that they were used in Dell Servers and I got a decent $$ on them.

This is one of the best hard drive docks I have ever used. I have been through dozens of docks and I have a pile of them I have stopped using for a variety of reasons. Here are a few reasons why I recommend this dock over others.1. Separate power buttons for each drive. Each drive can be powered on individually and ejected individually from within Windows. This is a big deal. I have several multi drive docks from other manufacturers where you have to load and eject all drives in the dock as a set.2. Cooling Fans. This is a must. Without active cooling, drives will get uncomfortably hot. The operating temperature of most drives should not exceed 50 degrees Celsius. In docks without any type of cooling, I've seen drives regularly exceed 50 degrees with extended use. There are 2 cooling fans in this dock. One for the left side and one for the right. Each cooling fan has an adjustment control on the back of the unit to adjust the speed of the fan or turn it off completely. Both fans will automatically turn off if all drive bays are off.3. UASP support. UASP stands for USB Attached SCSI Protocol. UASP support will ensure you get the best possible performance out of your hard drives.4. Reliability. This is the most reliable USB 3.0 hard drive dock I have ever used. I have several other less expensive USB 3.0 docks that have cost me dozens of hours doing data recovery because they would stop responding during long file transfers I have not experienced a single drop-out while using this dock.I have a single complaint about this unit, it is not enough for me to lower my rating, but it is something I would like to see improved in a future model.This unit automatically turns off both cooling fans when all drives are turned off. If I only have drives in the left side of the unit, it would be nice if only the left cooling fan turned on and vice-versa.

The StarTech - SDOCK4U33 .com 4 Bay USB 3.0 hard drive docking station is functionally nearly perfect. It operates seamlessly with Windows 10 even when connected to a USB Hub. My only thought about its function is that the fans that cool the unit seem to operate whether or not the unit is connected to the computer. I would have liked the fans to cease when the computer is off, but alas they run anyway. I get complete control over the individual drives as I expected, good input and output via USB 3.0. I found the unit somewhat over-priced, and I hope I'll be satisfied a long time later that the higher price was worth it. I had no issue with installing or using the dock. I replaced separate Thermaltake BlacX docks.

It is surprisingly hard to find a solid docking station. This one is rock solid and performs at full speed to each bay no problem. Has cooling which is rare, the individual power buttons are wonderful. One thing to note that is also a great feature is that each drive shows up individually in your eject menu so you can eject whatever drive you want without having to eject the whole docking station.