Question 1

I have a dead computer with data that I need to access. Can I use this to plug the drives from the old computer in to in order to access the data on a new system without actually installing the old internal drives?

Accepted Answer

Yes.  Put the old drive (SATA only) in the dock and power it on.  Windows will assign a drive letter to it and you can copy your data off of the old drive.  If you don't need the cloning feature you can save $ and just get a usb to sata adapter.  The cloning feature is a great bonus though and is useful for disaster recovery/cya.  I use it to make an exact copy of my c drives on my pc's.

Question 2

How long to clone a 4tb drive?

Accepted Answer

Never tried it with a 4TB and rarely use that function, but when I did I recall it was PAINFULLY SLOW.  I typicaly use it as a simple drive dock.  The best, fastest, most versatile and reliable imaging products are made by Terrabyte Unlimited (dot com).  They keep their software updated, works on many platforms (including EUFI) and have fully functional 30-day trials of everything; plus it's VERY affordable.

Question 3

Does the one touch button for cloning work through the application or the onboard hardware? Im curious because I am running linux and have no doubt that the application is not compatible.

Accepted Answer

The button does work with out the application. 
The software on the CD I didn't even install I use GFI back up and only use this device to back up people's hard drives and cloan hard drives.

It works good as long as the drives are the same size or the destination drive is larger.

Question 4

I assume the disk contents don't matter at all? I have a TiVo drive that's starting to get noisy, would like to clone it before it fails.

Accepted Answer

It makes a bit to bit copy of the drive and is OS independent.  It can clone a drive without using a PC.  I haven't tried a Tivo drive yet (mine is starting to make noise) but I probably will in the future.  I feel the unit was a good purchase.  Don't know if this helps you

Question 5

If I try to clone a 128GB drive onto a 240, will the 240 end up as a 240 or 128 ?

Accepted Answer

It will initially set your new drive up as the same size drive as the source drive with the remaining space set as unallocated space, however, it's quite easy to resize the drive to utilize the full amount of the drive using the storage tab in the computer management control panel app. I personally cloned a 250GB drive to a 1TB drive and had no issues resizing it to use the remaining 750GB.

Question 6

Can this be used to clone an existing windows 7 system hard drive  that may be going bad with a new drive for the pc?

Accepted Answer

Yes. But if the problem on the first disk has affected individual blocks, those bad blocks are copied as well as the good blocks. So, in the end, you may need to do other repairs or reinstall Windows 7.

Question 7

Do the hard drives have to be the same size? If the original hard drive is partition as C: and D:, will the new drive will have the same partition C: and D: or just clone the C: drive?

Accepted Answer

no need to be the same size but the target must be equal or larger than the source. yes, the target will have c and d if the source have both.

Question 8

Hey, What drive bay does what?...I misplaced the manual and I need to know what drive bay is for the master and what is for the drive to be cloned?
Thanks

Accepted Answer

Drive A (front) is the source (master)
Drive B (back) is the target (the clone) it must be of equal or greater size than source disk.

Question 9

When cloning, do the 2 drives have to be the same size or type ? In other words, can I clone a 1TB 3.5" spin HD to a 160GB 2.5" SSD ? (of course the data is less than 160GB)

Accepted Answer

No. You need software specifically made to copy a larger spinning drive to a smaller SSD. The latest backup/cloning software from most publishers now support that mode. This dock will not do that using its standalone clone function.

Question 10

As a docking station, is it possible to use the drives in a RAID 1 (mirrored) configuration?

Accepted Answer

No, this is not a RAID device. You put 2 HDs and you will see 2 HDs in windows. I do not know of any docking station that does RAID (only the enclosures that have trays for the hard drives and dip switches on the back to configure the RAID type).

Questions & Answers