Joined on 01/03/12
Works well but can overheat
Pros: Compact shape Design has passive cooling (heatsink, metallic case with fins) Can duplicate drives very quickly (2 TB in less than 25 minutes)
Cons: No active cooling or temperature monitoring of SSDs, so duplication may fail if drives overheat
Overall Review: The cloning function works as described. I was able to copy a 512 GB drive onto a 1 TB drive in less than 15 minutes without issue. However, when I attempted to copy a 2 TB drive onto another 2 TB drive, it halted partway through with a red light indicating an error on the target drive. I had noticed it getting hot before (I recently got a thermal camera) so I suspected the error was due to the second drive overheating. In the attached thermal camera image, the target drive is on the right and you can see it getting up to 48.5 Celsius (almost 120 Fahrenheit). To test if cooling was the issue I put it on a metal surface and blew a fan across it. After that it completed in less than 25 minutes without issue. The design has a heat sink under the board and a metallic case, but just beware that passive cooling may not be sufficient. One last minor nitpick: the end of the SSDs are meant to be secured with rubber gaskets instead of screws. This isn't explained very well in the instructions so I got confused and left the SSDs hanging in place just by the connectors (see photo). I didn't have any problems with this and eventually figured out what the gaskets are for, but I would prefer a screw to hold them in place and this might even help a little with heat dissipation.
Failed after less than 12 months.
Pros: It lasted almost a year and provided another 4 GB of memory.
Cons: Bought it on November 8, 2014, and noticed strange segfaults starting in October 2015. Thought it was a bad hard drive, but got the same problem on a new hard drive. Ran Memtest86+ and counted thousands of errors. Removed the extra RAM, Memtest86+ came out clean. Some of my files were corrupted, but fortunately I had backups.
Basic power only
Pros: - Cable is low-resistance (0.5 Ohm or less) and non-magnetic - Can charge at 5 V / 1.0 A (5 W) without issue
Cons: - Not usable for data transfer (e.g. Android Auto) - Not compatible with USB-C PD standard for higher powers, which means it will work with USB-A to USB-C cables but will not work at all with most laptop or phone USB-C chargers - Ground wire is alway connected even when power switch is off - No LED to show when switch is on or off
Overall Review: This USB-C toggle switch has limited capabilities compared to a good USB-C extension cable. USB-C cables have 24 pins, and a good USB-C extension cord will connect all 24 pins. I checked with some USB-C breakout boards and found that this cable only connects 6 of those 24 pins: A1 (GND), A4 (VBUS), A12 (GND), B1 (GND), B4 (VBUS), and B12 (GND). That means anything besides basic power transfer, such as data transfer or higher power modes, will not work.
Basic power only
Pros: - Blue LED lights to show power is on - Cable is 22 AWG, low-resistance (0.6 Ohm or less), and non-magnetic - Can charge at 5 V / 1.0 A (5 W) without issue
Cons: - Not usable for data transfer (e.g. Android Auto) - Not compatible with USB-C PD standard for higher powers, which means it will work with USB-A to USB-C cables but will not work at all with most laptop or phone USB-C chargers
Overall Review: This USB-C toggle switch has limited capabilities compared to a good USB-C extension cable. USB-C cables have 24 pins, and a good USB-C extension cord will connect all 24 pins. I checked with some USB-C breakout boards and found that this cable only connects 6 of those 24 pins: A1 (GND), A9 (VBUS), A12 (GND), B1 (GND), B9 (VBUS), and B12 (GND). That means anything besides basic power transfer, such as data transfer or higher power modes, will not work.
not tempered glass
Pros: Includes illustrated instructions, cleaning kit, and alignment tray.
Cons: This is *not* tempered glass, despite the description that says "Material:Tempered Glass". Rather this is a "Self-Healing Impact Proof Film", i.e. flexible transparent plastic.
Overall Review: If the material was actually tempered glass, I would rate this differently. (Although if it had been correctly described as a plastic film, I would not have bought it at all.)