StarTech.com USB 3.0 to SATA IDE HDD Docking Station Review
by Ganesh T S on June 18, 2012 1:30 PM ESTGiven the benchmark figures in the previous section, the pros and cons of the StarTech.com SATA / IDE to USB 3.0 docking station must be quite evident by now. Before summarizing those points, let us take a look at the power consumption of the unit. We used a Samsung SATA hard drive (HD103SJ) in this test as well as the Corsair SSD to gauge these numbers for the SATA slot. The table below presents the power consumption under various conditions.
| StarTech.com USB 3.0 IDE SATA HDD Docking Station - Power Consumption | |||
| SATA Slot | IDE Slot | Activity | Power Consumption |
| None | None | SATA Powered On | 2.4 W |
| None | None | IDE Powered On | 3.0 W |
| None | None | SATA and IDE Powered On | 3.0 W |
| Samsung HDD | None | Idle | 8.6 W |
| Samsung HDD | None | Disk Spun Down | 3.2 W |
| Samsung HDD | None | 4KB Random Read | 10.5 W |
| Samsung HDD | None | 4KB Random Write | 9.5 W |
| Samsung HDD | None | 128KB Sequential Read | 11 W |
| Samsung HDD | None | 128KB Sequential Write | 10.8 W |
| Corsair SSD | None | Idle | 3.0 W |
| Corsair SSD | None | Disk Spun Down | NA |
| Corsair SSD | None | 4KB Random Read | 3.4 W |
| Corsair SSD | None | 4KB Random Write | 4.7 W |
| Corsair SSD | None | 128KB Sequential Read | 4.3 W |
| Corsair SSD | None | 128KB Sequential Write | 5.4 W |
| None | WD EIDE HDD | Idle | 10.1 W |
| None | WD EIDE HDD | Disk Spun Down | 3.7 W |
| None | WD EIDE HDD | 4KB Random Read | 11.4 W |
| None | WD EIDE HDD | 4KB Random Write | 10.6 W |
| None | WD EIDE HDD | 128KB Sequential Read | 11.9 W |
| None | WD EIDE HDD | 128KB Sequential Write | 11.8 W |
The unit doesn't have any active cooling, which means it is completely silent. The hard drives are also not in any enclosed space, and as long as the unit is subject to airflow during operation, overheating is not a concern.
Coming to the business end of the review, we can say that the dock is an acceptable solution for users looking to access the data in their IDE drives on modern machines. On the SATA front, the unit faces stiff competition from the host of other cheaper SATA to USB 3.0 adapters. This unit is currently priced at $62 on Amazon. Pure SATA to USB 3.0 adapters are available for as low as $27. IDE/SATA to USB 3.0 combos are available for $40, although the industrial design appears very fragile (similar to the SATA duplicator from StarTech.com that we reviewed earlier). For approximately $22 more, we have a better looking unit which also appears to be more sturdy and saves space by allowing for upright mounting of the drives. However, for this cost, we would expect the USB 3.0 bandwidth to be fully utilized using a SATA 6 Gbps bridge chip. For $27, Vantec seems to be able to offer a SATA 6 Gbps to USB 3.0 5Gbps adapter.
The lack of UASP support which has the potential to increase the storage bandwidth is disappointing. We raised concerns about the fragility of the power adapter cords in the SATA duplicator review, and unfortunately, the dock we are covering today has the same issues. It is also not possible to have 2.5" SATA drives powered over the USB 3.0 port.
StarTech.com has a number of interesting hard-to-find gadgets in their arsenal. The current docking station is one of the few models available which supports both SATA and IDE drives over USB 3.0. In the next iteration, we would like StarTech.com to include full 6 Gbps support, UASP as well as the ability to power 2.5" drives over the USB 3.0 port. The industrial design is perfectly fine and needs no fine tuning.
In conclusion, the dock does fulfill the needs of users wanting to use their SATA hard drives and IDE drives at the maximum possible speed in space-constrained setups. Our main concern is with respect to the value for money. At $62, we feel is it is overpriced for the features offered. We will leave it to our readers to be the final judge.
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sheh - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
Cables running to the back? What's the idea?FH123 - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
Due to bad experiences with products like these, my first question would be more fundamental than the benchmarks: Does it work reliably? I've had multiple enclosures from Akasa which plain didn't. They consistently caused CRC errors when validating Ghost backups. This happened with multiple units on multiple machines with backups that were subsequently verified to be good, when the drive was put directly into a machine. As far as I recall I even tried different hard drives. In other words, I ruled out that it was anything but the enclosure as best I could. Did you validate data integrity or did you just take that as a given?I also own an older eSata version of the StarTech product you reviewed, but never really used it because of the pungent smell from of my particular unit, perhaps from the soldering job. Can you report on the smell of yours? No, I'm not kidding, the smell of mine is really strong and I swore off StarTech units as a result.
A still different adapter that I own, while mostly working fine, causes backups to hang every so often.
The common thread with many of these products seems to be JMicron chipsets. It seems impossible to avoid them. Ever since Anandtech reported on the JMicron issues with the first OCZ SSDs, of which I owned one, I've become weary of that company. My GigaByte motherboard works very reliably, except every now and then, after a boot, the mouse cursor locks up at regular intervals. This was improved, but not eliminated, by updating a JMicron driver for the PATA chipset in the machine.
ganeshts - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
We do not take data integrity as a given. I have actually used the unit to back up a couple of IDE (40 GB) and SATA drives (256 GB SSD / 1 TB HDD) sector-by-sector using HDDGuru's Raw Copy Tool : http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/ : and I had no trouble mounting the copies as virtual drives and accessing the data as well as restoring it back to the drive using the same software / docking station.My review unit didn't have any specific smell, but I really can't vouch for every unit out there.
JMicron's chipsets are cheap and quite common. SSD controllers are a different beast because there is no single right way to perform the activities of a SSD controller. SATA and USB bridges are fairly straightforward and it is just a matter of implementing the specifications. Note that the IDE bridge in this product has been around since early 2004 and the USB3 bridge has been around since late 2009. Plenty of time for customers to report issues with the chipsets and get it fixed in a new tape out / firmware update.
Aikouka - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
I own two USB 3 HDD docks (single drive only) from Vantec, and they work rather well. However, there's one small annoyance that I have with them... the drives will sometimes vibrate. Since I have mine positioned on top of my tower, the resonance with my case makes a rather annoying buzzing noise. I usually solve this by shoving something in the slot with the drive.Does this enclosure suffer from the same problem?
Also, what made you want to review this enclosure over the numerous other brands? I know when I was searching for a new USB 3 enclosure, I saw a few different brands. I'm also curious... I noticed the Apricorn self-powered USB 3 SATA adapter, and I was wondering how that compares to a powered adapter. I think Anand used one in a recent review.
What's amusing is that I considered buying it, but I shied away because I had never heard of the brand Apricorn before. I bought a Crucial M4 SSD with the transfer kit (the normal one went OOS). I like having spare adapters, so I didn't mind too much. Well, I opened the box to find... an Apricorn adapter. It actually works rather well so far with my old SSD, which makes me rather bummed that I passed on them so quickly.
ganeshts - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
There is no specific vibration dampening mechanism, but I really didn't encounter anything out of the ordinary. (Every dock I have seen has some amount of vibration, and it actually depends on the drive being used).As for why this kit was reviewed, it basically depends on what product a company pitches to us at a given point in time (whether it is relevant to our readers / current coverage) and whether the editors have time to review the product at the time of pitching :)
If you want us to review any particular brands, let us know and we can always try to approach them for evaluation units.
Lerianis - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
Even server farms have swapped them out. Sounds to me like it would have been better to have both slots SATA so you can use both of them for hard drives.vectorm12 - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
In Sweden you can pick one of those up but instead of StarTech it's branded deltaco. Wonder if it's just some gadget that's been labeled god knows what or if it's the same company using different names.