SPCR

Hi folks,

I'm searching for an external SATA hard-drive dock (USB3), for backup purposes.

I'm slightly worried about power supplies being under-dimensioned to spin up some 3.5" drives.

Has anyone come across a good value-for-money version?

Cheers!

I have a generic version with both USB2 and eSATA. Only use eSATA on a regular basis. It has served me well over the years. Power is supplied via a DC jack, so any 12V adapter will work. I use a 1.5A adapter that originally came with another external HDD.

Mine looks a lot like this.

Cool, thanks. Yes, I saw lots of this type of models on Amazon. Did you ever have issues with disk-spinup?

edit: I wonder, do you think the 12V supply could be replaced with a beefier version, should there ever be any issues with spin-up? I assume this would just be pass-through to the SATA power-port?

I've never had any problems with spin up, but I think most problems of that kind would be solved by just replacing the power adapter with something more powerful.

I have a similar unit... never had an issue with spin-up, but did have an issue with sustained operations (like cloning a 3TB drive to another 3TB drive). Like after 20-30 minutes of continuous writing, the speed dropped dramatically. I opened the box and put small heatsinks (from a raspberry pi kit, I think) on the USB-SATA bridge chip, and have had no issues since, so I assume it was heat related. YMMV.

Thanks. Good to know. Some people seem to report problems with long-term reliability on Amazon reviews. Maybe I can find some reliable reviews somewhere.

Ooooor just go for an el-cheapo dock.