StarTech.com SDOCK2U313R USB 3.1 (10Gbps) Standalone Duplicator Dock for 2.5" & 3.5" SATA SSD / HDD - with Fast-Speed Duplication up to 28GB/min

Pros: Great device. Use this more than I thought I would. I purchased this initially as a HDD dock, but I find I am using the duplicator and eraser functions a lot! It's nice to hit the button and then walk away, come back in a bit and the clone is done. It sure beats putting the drives in a PC or using some mess of cables to hook everything up. Speeds are pretty good when cloning and erasing disks. Speeds are also quite good when using as a dock.

Cons: I don't like that you have to unplug the dock from your PC to use the clone / erase function. Also every once in a while I get an issue when plugging two drives into the dock they don't register on the PC and I have to reboot the dock. Other than that it's a good device, a little pricey, but it was well worth it for me

Pros: In my business, I have very expensive equipment. In 2013, I upgraded my office with $13,000 investment in 3 new Windows 7 PC's running Win7 Ultimate with Win XP virtualization for legacy hardware and software support. However, I needed to keep 3 older PC's running Win XP, because of complex hardware issues related to a very expensive legacy HP laser printer ($6500, large format) and legacy software that won't run on even Win 7 in XP virtualization. So, I needed to protect the old legacy hardware and software investment. The answer for me was (is) the StarTech USB 3.0 HDD Duplicator. I bought 3 new high end Seagate Constellation ES.2 2 TB hard drives, with MTBF failure rating of 1.2 Million hours, and 5 years warranty for the legacy PC's. With the StarTech duplicator, I was able to clone the old hard drives in my old PC's in one day, literally turning them into new PC's with extreme reliability. My most worrisome reliability issue is now completely gone. This is a killer piece of hardware for protecting PC operating systems and data, with a virtually identical copy on a new hard drive. A 250 GB drive is cloned onto a new duplicate drive in about 75 minutes. A 2 TB drive takes about 5-6 hours. It's the size of the drive, not the amount of data on it that determines the cloning time. This hardware will be a life-saver for many people with aging computers.

Cons: The user instructions are not clear that the buttons must be held for 3-4 seconds to start cloning or erasing of hard drives.

Overall Review: It is also a hard drive dock, permitting connection of the cloned (or any working hard drive) to a desktop or notebook computer for file updating, through the USB 3 port. The lights on the front change over to activity lights, equivalent to the hard drive light on PC's, when using the duplicator as a dock. The duplicator works with both desktop and notebook hard drives. Just drop them into the slots on top, turn the power switch on, in back, and go to work cloning or transferring files. There is an erase button, concealed on the back of the duplicator to remove all data from drives. Cloning copies bit-by-bit from HDD1 to HDD2 slot. To start cloning, or erasing, the user must hold the respective button for 3-4 seconds to start the clone or erase. Erase will erase the data drives in either slot. The slots are labeled Source, and Destination. I recommend for safety that users label their hard drives on the opposite end from the connectors (on top) with masking tape, before cloning or erase to make sure that the drives are inserted into the correct slot. After you have cloned your older hard drive, you will sleep much better, knowing the PC will not fail. DO keep the old drive as a backup, AND you can also update it in the dock feature, later on. SIMPLY AMAZING! You won't want to be without this hardware to protect your PC's. It adds to your backing up arsenal tremendously. It has given me tremendous piece of mind, knowing without a doubt that my old PC's will not fail me in the legacy support that I need in my business. (My purchase of the StarTech duplicator was not from newegg, but, I do purchase from newegg regularly)

Pros: This is by far the best stand alone HD dock on the market. today. I didn't buy it for that. I bought it because it is a Duplicator and it is by far the best that I have seen to date. No need to have it hooked up to a PC to work. It will clone Windows 8.1 update 1 perfectly. That's why I bought 2.

Cons: None Not One.

Overall Review: The instructions are easy to read, but make sure to read carefully. It takes about 3 hrs. to clone 1 TB Its not fast but the end result is only thing that matters. It will clone ever thing office etc. with out any problems or activation problems. windows update works ever thing will work as if it was the original drive. All or this with out software. You don't want know how much money I have spent on Clone software and not work.... Well not any more. Make sure to cycle the power off and on at the end. Its simple.

Pros: Will copy a drive with nothing but a power connection! (WD80GB->WD80GB = 27 minutes) I use it as a standalone device for drive copy only.

Cons: Don't expect to use the e-sata connection unless you have a card that supports FIS-based switching with Port Multipliers. It really should say something about this in the details.

Overall Review: Works fine as a PC dock under USB 2.0 but really slow compared to a e-sata dock.

Pros: One button press CLONE (sector--by-sector) or WIPE with all zero's. To clone you press the small green button on the front, to erase you press the green recessed button on the back for about 3-4 seconds.

Cons: None that I have found.

Overall Review: I really like this device, I use this quite often to wipe my HDD's with all zeros. This makes it really handy if for some reason you need to wipe a drive. For example, you don't need to use the DD command to wipe with all zeros when writing a file with DD-WRT. Also, I've had a few WD Red HDD's go bad and it was nice to be able to wipe the failed RAID drive with all zeros prior to sending it back to the vendor for replacement. Naturally you can do this with a PC but it's very nice to be able to just press a recessed button and not have to deal with Linux or other wiping software. The cloning process has worked for me flawlessly as well, it's not as fast as the other Startech dock out there SDOCK2U33RE (22 GB/min) but it's quite nice... I also own the SDOCK2U33RE and it has a very fast copy/clone speed, but the other unit is lacking an ERASE feature... As for the other reviews stating that the drive must be powered off or drives not being detected, I can't comment on this as I don't use these devices plugged into USB 3.0. I pretty much use these devices as stand alone. If you need to frequently do drive wipes or cloning without the use of a PC this is a very nice machine at an excellent pricepoint.

Pros: -concept -price -functions -USB 3.0

Cons: -directions are misleading or my system is faulty but working

Overall Review: This is cool product at a fair price. I bought the dual bay for duplication specifically. The instructions (from MFG website) state the USB cable is to be connected prior to powering for duplication. I have only been able to initialize the duplication process with the USB connector disconnected. It works fine other than that.

Pros: Wipes drives in a timely fashion but disk erase is only a single pass erase, so does not suffice for meeting HITECH/HIPAA or other legal requirements for deleting data. Works well as a hot swap caddy, data transfer speeds are acceptable, and seems reliable, on my USB2 rig. USB 3.0 rated their site says it is backward compatible with USB 2.0 which is what I have at the moment, and works fine so far. Shipping was fast, as always.

Cons: Tried cloning about 15 times with several different drives, 80 gig to 80 gig... 80 gig to 120 and 120 to 80 gig combinations. Most drives would not boot after clone, if they did clone they had registry errors and did not function correctly. Ended up getting "Acronis" free from western digital site and doing the cloning with that software, very fast i might add, about 7 minutes to clone 80 gig drives, windows XP-pro systems. Average user beware after this wipes a drive, you will have to personally reformat it in order to use the drive again, all attempts to clone to a fresh wiped drive has failed. The user instructions are not clear that the buttons must be held for 3-4 seconds to start cloning or erasing of hard drives, so keep the buttons pressed until you see it change, the erase button is rather hard to depress so keep trying until it works. Note: all drives that failed duplication with this unit cloned ok with clonezilla and or Acronis, I don't believe drives were the problem.

Overall Review: Would you recommend this product to other people? No, as far as recommending this to a friend, id say don't count on it as a reliable duplicator to back up an operating system, its pretty much just a nice hot swap caddie, in my opinion. If given the choice, would you purchase this product again? No, not for 60 bucks, i think a cheaper 30.00 unit would work just as well. If there is something about the product you could change, what would it be? Id change the erase button to something easier to press, but still keep it in an off location, to prevent accidental erasing. Install more reliable duplication firm ware, or make it flashable to upgrade it to reliable firm ware that works.

Pros: Incredibly fast for rotational drives. Work right out of the box with no issues. Though plastic its sturdy enough for 3.5 drives.

Cons: I had an issue with the USB type C cable. It was dropping the connection intermittently. I switched back to the USB Type-A to B and it was working fine after that. I called up StarTech and explain the problem to them they were more than happy to send me another cable. The cable seem a bit lose when inserting it. No big deal.

Overall Review: For best result I do recommend a 7200 RPM Hardrive or a Solid State Drive. That's when you see the speed and capability of the product.