Hey look more USB 3.0 stuff for you!!
Today for review I’ve got another product courtesy of our friends at Brando USB, it’s another USB 3.0 product but this one is a hard drive dock. Personally I like HDD docks quite a bit, they’re much more useful than enclosures because they’re so much easier to use. The one I have for review today though is from Unitek, and it’s your basic dock that can accommodate 3.5” or 2.5 hard drives, but of course it’s special because it’s USB 3.0 capable. So read on to learn more..
Specifications:
Unitek USB 3.0 SATA HDD Docking Station (Y-1071)
The USB 3.0 SATA HDD Docking Station (Y-1071) allows you to plug any 2.5" or 3.5" SATA Harddisk to your computer via USB port, a powerful tool for data transfer, backup and cloning. With the Superspeed USB 3.0 mode, it offers a theoretical data transfer speed of 5.0GBit/s. That’s ten times faster than the USB 2.0 speed of 480 MBit/s. It is a perfect HDD dock for everyone.
Price: US$58.00
Features:
-SuperSpeed (5 Gbps) / high-speed (480 Mbps) / full-speed (12 Mbps)
-Compliant to Universal Serial Bus 3.0 Specification, Revision 1.0
-Compliant to Universal Serial Bus Specification, Revision 2.0
-Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport Compliant to Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport, Revision 1.0
-SATA Gen2i (3 Gbps) & Gen1i (1.5 Gbps) Compliant to Serial ATA Specification Revision 2.6
-Supports ATA / ATAPI device
-Supports 2TB over HDD
-Supports Window 7 / Vista / Xp, Linux
-Dimension: 148 x 94 x 85mm (approx.)
-Weight: 195g
Package Contents:
-USB 3.0 SATA HDD Docking Station (Y-1071)
-USB 3.0 A to B Cable
-AC Adapter (100-240V)
Unboxing:
The box is nicely done, it’s informative, but it’s just a box after all.
Once everything is unpacked we find the dock itself, USB 3.0 cable and power supply.
The dock itself is actually rather attractive, I like the look of it and especially the shape. Most docks you see are square, so it’s nice to see something a bit different.
On the back you’ll find the power switch, USB 3.0 connection and the power connection.
Inside we find the SATA connection, not much special here.
There is a power indicator in the center at the top but no activity indicator…
The cable is USB 3.0 so the connections are blue to make sure you know that and the one end is shaped a bit differently from the standard USB 2.0 style connector.
Installation, Performance, Comparison
For the testing I’m using the Gigabyte USB 3.0 PCIE card that I reviewed earlier this week and a 750GB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive.
I’m using HD Tune Pro and Atto Disk Benchmark for the testing.
First is the testing with the hard drive inside my computer so we can get an idea of how it performs ‘normally’.
Here’s Atto:
and here’s HD Tune:
So know we know that, let’s check out the USB 2.0 speeds. This is using the Unitek on the USB 2.0 port.
Atto first:
Obviously much slower than the direct SATA connection.
Here’s the results from HD Tune:
Tells us about the same thing at Atto did.
Now let’s hook it up to the USB 3.0 connection and see what happens:
Again, first is Atto:
The read speeds look as good as the SATA connection don’t they?
and here’s HD Tune:
We got virtually the same average speed with USB 3.0 and the SATA connection with this drive. Nice and fast.
As far as the actual Unitek HDD Dock is concerned it is nicely made, I like the look of it and it feels sturdy.
One thing I like about this dock is that it’s deeper than others out there and provides more support for the drive inside of it.
One complaint I might have is that there is no eSATA connection on the dock, but with USB 3.0 I don’t think there will be much of a difference so it’s not really needed I think.
Conclusion:
As I mentioned in the beginning, I like hard drive docks, and this is another one that I now like and will use with my USB 3.0 connection. I guess it’ time to retire my USB 2.0 dock now…
Seriously though this dock is one of the nicer ones that I’ve had the chance to review, it’s well made and aesthetically pleasing and of course it’s fast.
Pros:
+Well made and designed
+Easy to use
+Fast
Cons:
-None really
Ratings
Overall: 5 out of 5
Performance: 5 out of 5
Aesthetic: 5 out of 5
Build Quality: 5 out of 5
Disclosure: This product was given to Bona Fide Reviews for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products.
