Introduction

Storage solutions are fundamental to any company and they have become a necessity to the household because data is something we cannot afford to lose.Though there is no direct foreseeable advantage to backing up data and it may not even ultimately benefit the individual when something catastrophic does occur we are so relieved that we had a procedure in place that meant our important data was securely kept from harms reach. Data loss can happen at any time and it usually happens when you least expect it-I'm talking from personal experience here.So with this in mind,today i will be taking a look at one of Sandberg's latest addition,the USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station.



With the introduction over,let's begin my observation of the new USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station.




Packaging & Contents


The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station comes in a modest-sized white box wrapped in thin plastic.The usage of colours and graphics are at a minimum, giving the product a professional look. The front of the box gives a nice image of the product along with a quick enumeration of features, such as hard drive support, operating system support and supported connectors.



The back of the box describes the specifications of the Docking Station.The box also states a long 5 year warranty with the product.Such a long warranty period clearly shows that Sandberg backs the quality of their product.



The right and left sides of the packaging retains the clean look of the overall package, with a simple picture of the product.



The scope of delivery for the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station includes the power adapter, USB 3.0 cable, user manual and of course the dock itself.




A Closer Look

The actual design of the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station is best described as a mini toaster as it has one slot at the top which is used to place your 3.5/2.5" SATA hard drives inside.At the front there is a LED which is used to determine when the action is taking place.The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station has nothing else on its front surface apart from the Sandberg logo.



The aluminum housing provides firm standing and elegant looking.Thanks to its aluminum finish, the dock station is not a fingerprint magnet.The top has a slight decreasing incline from back to front.Other than having a rectangular shape, the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station has a top cover that can be lowered.



Once lowered it will allow the installation of the drive.The depth of the slot for the hard drive is about 3 cm, which is more than sufficient to secure the hard drive.However its not that bulky and despite the plastic feel it feels quite sturdy and sits well on the desk due to its rubberised feat.



At the back is the USB 3.0 port.Also you will find an On/Off switch and the DC-in connector port (mains charger).For computers that have USB 3.0,the dock lack of eSATA and FireWire support doesn't really matter-USB 3.0 is by far the fastest peripheral connection to date.However,since most existing computers don't support USB 3.0,i wish the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station also offered other connection options.



At the bottom of the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station, a small label gives information on the docking station, such as the the UPC code.Four small rubber feet are located at each corner.These help reduce the vibration caused by an installed hard drive to be transferred to the surface the Docking Station is placed on.Their overall vibration dampening is quite good, but larger rubber or silicone feet would have been preferable.They also grip wooden surfaces, such as a desk, very well.



Here is the pcb inside the unit.The unit doesn't have any active cooling, which means it is completely silent.The hard drive is also not in any enclosed space, and as long as the unit is subject to airflow during operation, overheating is not a concern.



In the photos below,i have setup one 3.5" HDD to test the function of the dock.




Performance

In terms of performance the USB 3.0 port held up well for both SATA 3.0Gb/s and 6.0Gb/s SSDs.Using an assortment of drives on hand I found the interface to max out around 180MB/s read and 155MB/s write.I didn't see any huge gap between 3.0 and 6.0Gb/s devices, since both could saturate the USB 3.0 connection without a problem.




Conclusion

The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station quickly turns any internal hard drive into an external one.It offers very fast throughput speed with USB 3.0.The device is compact, easy to use, and supports both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives.On the downside,the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station doesn't have FireWire or eSATA connections and it doesn't support the older IDE hard drive standard.The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station takes advantage of this faster interface and though i don?t quite get the quoted ?10 times faster? transfer speeds i do experience a significant improvement over the older USB 2.0.Even if you don?t have a USB 3.0 port it is backwards compatible ? meaning that if you only have USB 2.0 the device will still work, the transfer rate will just take a hit as its constrained to the USB 2.0 interface.



The Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station can currently be found for about 41,99 Euros- a pretty good deal by my standards.In conclusion,the dock does fulfill the needs of users wanting to use their SATA hard drives at the maximum possible speed in space-constrained setups.Any user that finds themselves constantly on the lookout for extra storage,temporary or permanent,or even if you have some extra internal SATA hard drives sitting around that you'd like to get some use out of,the Sandberg USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station makes a perfect fit.Installation is easy, usage is straight forward and the price is right.