Introduction

Portable storage devices have become very popular over the years, especially for people on the go or in charge of maintaining numerous PCs. The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' has the ability to easily add external storage via its USB 3.0 interface a.This feature should make it an enticing option for IT professional and home users alike. Let's go check this unit out and see what Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' has to offer.



Here are the specifications as provided by the Sandberg product page.




Unboxing

The retail package does an excellent job of explaining the product within.



A tour around the box will give you the specifications and features.



Along with the Docking station itself there is a quick-start guide.



The included Superspeed USB 3.0 micro B to 2x USB Type A Male Y Cable Splitter Adapter C302 measures in at around 28-inches or 70cm in length. The USB 3.0 cable itself supports transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbps, 10x faster than USB 2.0.




A Closer Look

The unit is constructed of plastic.



On the top of the enclosure you'll find a power button.



The front area has a Sandberg logo and one led light to indicate when the unit is powered on.



At the back is the connection for the USB cable.



The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is bus-powered, so all you need is the included USB cable for it to work.



The bottom of the unit has four rubber feet that are roughly 1/4″ tall. The rubber feet will help to keep the unit from sliding around on the surface and provide a bit of vibration dampening as well.



A look inside.



The USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is a tool-less drive, so you won't need to fiddle around with any screws or screwdrivers to get this up and running. You just insert a 2.5″ SATA storage drive.



I had no issues installing this 7mm z-height drive in the Sandberg enclosure, but keep in mind that nothing other than the SATA connecetors are keeping the drive from moving around. This is not something you'd want to travel with.




Performance

Using ATTO Disk Bench,I set out to test read/write speeds. First up was a 2.5″ SATA 6 GB/s platter hard drive. In this test,we peaked out at 140 MB/s read and 135 MB/s write. That?s about all you can expect from from the WD BLACK SERIES WD5000BPKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" I used in this test.



As expected, once an SSD is installed, read/write performance takes a big jump. With a Samsung 840 Pro SSD installed,we see read/write speeds maxing out at 269 MB/s and 263 MB/s respectively. Great performance from the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5" here.




Conclusion

The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is a very simple and straight forward device that does what it is supposed to. You simply plug it into your system and it works. Transfer speeds with the WD BLACK SERIES WD5000BPKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s platter drive were about as good as expected, but as expected things perk up quite a bit when you use a SSD drive.



The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is a sweet little device that has a lot of potential uses. Anything from adding simple external storage to easily performing cloning operations, the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' can handle it all.When it comes to pricing the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is available for $32.99. That is a fairly reasonable price for what you get as competing single drive docking stations by other companies.The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is backed by a 5-year limited warranty should something ever go wrong.Given its portability, cloning capabilities, excellent performance, and affordable price, the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking 2.5'' is definitely worth a look if you?re in the market.