Question 1

Can two drives be used at once to copy from one to another?

Accepted Answer

Each drive needs to be formatted. Then each will appear with the name you have given it and can be used to copy from one to the other. I am not sure what you mean by "right away" but each drive is independent of the other unless, of course, you make them into a RAID. I hope that helps.

Question 2

Why do the spec say it supports up to 2 TB per bay? Wouldn't it just depend on the operating system being able to see a larger hard disk?

Accepted Answer

Gustave,
My understanding of the limit of 2TB is that in order to go beyond that you need some sort of software to change the way in which the data is written. Apparently, the tracks for drives beyond 2 TB are smaller and need a change in the driver to read/write. 
My understanding is limited so if you want to go to 3 or 4 TB you should check with Thermaltake and the hard disk maker to see how to make that work. 
I stopped at 2TB because I felt that making smaller tracks meant less reliability. And since drives do fail, why put all that data on one single drive. I like the dual docks and have two of them because everything I do is in RAID 1 - always two drives writing the same data. I hope this is somewhat helpful.

Question 3

Does this support windows 8?

Accepted Answer

Yes. It's simply a USB drive reader. Much like a card reader it will connect via USB 2.0. However, if you're running a Windows 8 Laptop or PC, I would assume you would also have a USB 3.0 (blue usb ports) connection which is much faster and more reliable than the USB 2.0 (white USB) or eSATA (special red port) connection which requires a very specific kind of two-way eSATA capability. Go look at the more recent version of Thermaltake's dual drive bay with USB 3.0 capability. You will be much more pleased.

Otherwise, you plug it in, it installs drivers automatically, wallah, you're ready to go. I highly recommend using a free copy of EASUS Partition Master software which can be found at Filehippo. You'll love it. It can also be plugged into a wifi router that has USB ports. Basically transforming it into a NAS drive. I love using it on my ASUS Black Knight router.

Question 4

When connected with eSata, do you see both drives or only one?  I only have one eSata connection in my machine and would like to have two drives connected.

Accepted Answer

I use the USB or eSATA connection and can see both drives when opening up the Windows files explorer.  Be sure to format each of the two drives with an active partition.

Question 5

Can this docking station duplicate disks?

Accepted Answer

I'm not 100% sure of its full capabilities; I only understand it to do what I need and that is to read a drive I've removed from a customer's PC to one, confirm the drive is still good, and two, to extract their personal data for them.

I would suspect that within Windows Explorer, you could transfer files between two drives docked in the station.  To duplicate disks --- well, I would think you need to have software to complete such a task.  The docking station is a pretty good start to at least have the software work with.

Question 6

Can it read ATA Drives?

Accepted Answer

ATA, aslo knows as IDE, drives can not be read by this device. This should not be too big an issue for most people because by today's standards these drives are small and slow.

Tve device will read and write SATA and eSATA drives, whice are the vast majority of drives in use today.

Question 7

Can this be used to format a drive?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it can. That's what I use it for, and you can format two drives at the same time as long as they are not assigned the same drive letter. Like it would have to be D: and E: etc.

Question 8

Is there an add on product that will allow me to read IDE drives?

Accepted Answer

There is no IDE HDD support using this item out of the box.  It would take some manipulation.  I looked through the New Egg catalog and there are some possibilities that you have that may work to use this item with IDE.  you would have to get an IDE to SATA gender changer (less than $15) like Item#: N82E16812186078, and use cables to connect your HDD to this item.  You would also need to get power to your IDE drive but there are cables for that as well.  But with all this said I think what you are looking for is Item#: N82E16817707192: StarTech UNIDOCK2U USB to SATA IDE Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5in or 3.5in HDD.  This would be the cleanest solution to what you are asking.  Hope this helps.

Question 9

Does the Samsung 840 EVO 750 GB,Internal,2.5" Solid State Drive fit an work with this unit?

Accepted Answer

dont know for sure, but assuming it is a SATA drive then it should - i have plugged in a different model 2.5inch SATA drive and it worked fine...

Question 10

Has anyone had success using this with Linux? I am currently using a Raspberry Pi with Raspbian and an old 250gb usb drive but have 2x 750gb drives i would like to use instead.

Accepted Answer

I have two of these units for my iMac connected via USB and they have been trouble free and very useful. I am not a Linux user but if Linux deals with USB devices why would there be a problem?

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