Pros: Inexpensive
USB & eSATA interfaces work at reasonable speeds
Both HDDs accessible on SATA controllers that support port replication

Cons: Flimsy construction
Thin plastic shell amplifies HDD noise
Drives spin down after a couple minutes of inactivity

Other Thoughts: I bought two of these as convenience items for working with loose SATA HDDs--creating and writing HDD images, recovering data from hosed systems, large file transfers, etc. They work fine when there is constant HDD activity, but in other circumstances they spin down abruptly every couple of minutes regardless of the OS and BIOS settings for HDD and USB device power management. This happens when connected via USB. It's annoying, and it's not good for the HDDs. Granted, I've used them only on Win7 and Win10 machines with Intel USB3 controllers, but they should perform better on such a widespread platform.

Perhaps my experience is an isolated case. Regardless, I will not purchase this item again, nor will I recommend it to anyone else.

Pros: Unit works well, fairly fast, easy to power on/off.

Cons: Eject feature is useless for 2.5 inch drives. Works "ok" for 3.5 inch drives. I've seen better competitors that eject both 3.5/2.5 inch drives without issue.

Other Thoughts: If this thing is reliable and doesn't fail every 3-4 months like the adapter I replaced it with, I'll accept the fact that it's ejecting feature sucks and keep using it.

Pros: The ON/OFF button is big, easy to see and only requires a gentle touch to operate.

(I usually use the "Toasters" for Cloning or Backing up so they typically are sitting on top of one of the computers. Buttons with a hard push require two hand operation.. this only needs one... so I can hold my beverage whilst operating it).

I have had no issues with this toaster.

Cons: NONE

Other Thoughts: I would recommend to a friend.

Pros: Works right out the box very easy to use

Cons: cords are bulky

Other Thoughts: glad i bought it

Pros: Does exactly what I wanted it for. Connects easily through USB 3.0 port and transfer speeds are what I expected. It connected through eSata as well, but that port on my system is only a II, so the speed is actually better through USB.

Cons: None so far.

Pros: Unchanged from my original review: "The biggest pro is that this Vantec dock actually connects at USB 3.0 speeds to the USB 3.0 ports on my Asus P8Z77-V Pro motherboard under Windows 8.1. In general, very, VERY few of the USB 3.0 devices I've tried have managed this (even though they did so under Windows 7 just fine). Usually, they connect at only USB 2.0 speeds. Or, sometimes, they won't connect at all."

Cons: Unchanged from my original review: "No real cons. I suppose I could stretch things to say that this dock is much bigger than the other docks I've used. But, that's pretty minor."

Other Thoughts: Unfortunately, I can't edit my original review. So, I'm adding an update here.

I've now tried this dock with a current, 6 GB/sec hard drive (Western Digital WD40EZRX). Unfortunately, the benchmarking software I was using (free version of HD Tune) doesn't handle very large drives like this. So, I can't come up with a direct comparison to my earlier benchmarks using older (3 GB/sec) drives.

In order to provide some numbers, I first did a System Image Backup of my system (SSD drives) in Windows 8.1 with this dock connected via USB 3.0. I know System Image Backup does other things besides copying files. But, it should provide a floor for transfer speed. It took 19 minutes to produce a 151 GB set of files. That's about 133 MB/sec. While the backup was running, I eyeballed the drive under Task Manager| Performance and it looked like it was averaging a fairly constant 125 GB/sec. So, that agrees.

I then copied my windows.iso file (2,762 MB) to the drive (with the dock connected first via USB 3.0 and then via eSATA). In each case, it took 17 seconds.to write to the drive and 8 seconds to read from it (162 MB/sec write and 345 MB/sec read). To check small file performance, I copied my Pictures folder (3.53 GB, 4,622 files, 462 folders). That took 40 seconds to write to the drive and 35 seconds to read from it (88 MB/sec write and 100 MB/sec read).

My primary purpose for the dock is as a backup device (i.e., I'll be mostly writing to it). So, I'll go with the write speeds and say the dock is allowing my system to write to a 6 GB/sec (300 MB/sec real-world optimal) mechanical hard drive at about 125 MB/sec. That's not as high as I would have hoped. But, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Pros: The biggest pro is that this Vantec dock actually connects at USB 3.0 speeds to the USB 3.0 ports on my Asus P8Z77-V Pro motherboard under Windows 8.1. In general, very, VERY few of the USB 3.0 devices I've tried have managed this (even though they did so under Windows 7 just fine). Usually, they connect at only USB 2.0 speeds. Or, sometimes, they won't connect at all.

Cons: No real cons. I suppose I could stretch things to say that this dock is much bigger than the other docks I've used. But, that's pretty minor.

Other Thoughts: Right now, my testing is incomplete. It turns out that even though my motherboard uses SATA 3.0 (6 Gb/s) and USB 3.0 (5 Gb/s), the drives I have for backups are all capable of just 3 Gb/s. I'm ordering a current drive and when it gets here, I'll update this review. But here are my HD Tune results for what I've got:

Western Digital WD640AALS (USB 3.0 numbers first, then eSATA numbers):
Minimum Transfer Rate = 61.3 MB/s and 61.3 MB/s
Maximum Transfer Rate = 110.9 MB/s and 103.0 MB/s
Average Transfer Rate = 92.1 MB/s and 89.3 MB/s
Access Time = 11.9 ms and 11.9 ms
Burst Rate = 111.4 MB/s and 78.9 MB/s
CPU Usage = 3.6% and 2.9%

Intel SSDSA2M160G2GC (USB 3.0 numbers first, then eSATA numbers):
Minimum Transfer Rate = 141.4 MB/s and 99.6 MB/s
Maximum Transfer Rate = 183.6 MB/s and 112.3 MB/s
Average Transfer Rate = 173.0 MB/s and 108.6 MB/s
Access Time = 0.1 ms and 0.1 ms
Burst Rate = 79.3 MB/s and 67.6 MB/s
CPU Usage = 6.4% and 3.5%

So, even the SSD is only reaching (very roughly) around half the real-world expected maximum of 300 MB/s for these drive. But, interestingly, using the USB 3.0 connector on the dock give significantly better performance that does using the eSATA connector.

We'll see what happens when I try a 6 Gb/s drive (coming soon).

Pros: Easy to use, Good price, Works awesome with my Samsung 840 EVO SSD, no funky connections, USB 3.0 regular full size USB for both connections

Cons: I have not had any cons with the enclosure, not even overheating, remains cool even during in full write process

Pros: - At this point in time, VanTec is the only dual-bay toaster than can do USB 3.0 and eSATA.
- I performance tested the eSATA and USB 3.0. It's less than 2 MBps of the drives maximum transfer rate, and that's with the protocol overhead.
- Centers the drives better than my ThermalTake
- Comes with top notch USB 3.0 and eSATA cables.
- Brick is on the cord, so you don't have any issues with wall warts not fitting into a plug strip or wall socket.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I own an IT company, and one of our old ThermalTake toasters died at a customer, so I ordered another. I tested it with two drives on USB and they both showed up. Only one showed up under eSATA, but I didn't expect otherwise because my laptop doesn't have port multiplication. Then I moved it to a desktop that has a card in it that does, and they both showed up. It has both power and disk activity lighting, and it is plenty bright. This is my first experience with VanTec toasters, rather than ThermalTakes, but it looks like we will be buying these from now on. USB 2.0 is far too slow to keep up with a hard drive, and some times the only fast port you have to work with is an eSATA port. The quality of everything looks fine. Howard Johnson's advertises, "The best surprise is no surprise" That's exactly the case here. Having been in IT most of my life, I've become accustomed to things not performing as advertised. The surprise is it works exactly as advertised.

Pros: This works like it says it does. Not blindingly fast, but pretty decent. Price is good sale or not.

Have not had the problem reported of having to pop both drives when removing only one.

Cons: Not blindingly fast.

Other Thoughts: I got it on sale. If I hadn't bought it on sale, I would have paid full price and been just as satisfied.