Product: Kingwin EZ-Dock
Price: ~$35.00     Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
Manufacturer: Kingwin
Author: aliencam (Cameron Kopas)

Lately, external hard drive docks have become a popular accessory, specifically the open form factor ones that allow quick swapping of the media in the dock. The Kingwin EZ-Dock is a medium to low cost option with all of the features of the more expensive models.

Packaging & Overview

The Kingwin EZ-Dock comes in a cube shaped cardboard box. When you open the box, the dock is wrapped in clear plastic. There is another smaller cardboard box below it which contains the cables and the AC adapter. The package includes one 6 foot USB-B cable and one 6 foot E-SATA Cable.

The Kingwin EZ-Dock supports 2.5”and 3.5” SATA hard drives, so both notebook and desktop drives fit in it. The drives stand vertically in the dock, leaning back slightly so that the drives are supported by the back and side walls instead of just being held up by the SATA connection. This helps to prevent the hard drive or the dock from being broken if the drive is bumped while in the dock. If you are using a laptop (2.5”) drive, the drive will only be supported from the back and side, so it could be damages if hit from the back, but it it still better than having no support.

The back has a pushbutton power switch, the DC Power port, an e-SATA, and a USB-B (printer) port. The power plug is a strange shape, (something like an S-video port) so if you loose the power cord it is unlikely that you already have one on hand.

The front of the dock is not completely plain, there are two LEDs, one green LED for power, and another, red LED for data usage. There is also a square white button labeled “back-up.” On the top section (with the button and LEDs), there is grey text that reads “EZ-DOCK”, and on the front there is the Kingwin logo.

My first impression of the dock was that it was a sturdy product, although the type of plastic used has a little bit of a textured, chalky feel to it. The material reminded me of plastics used a little bit in the past, but it didn’t cause any lasting problems. When I first started using the dock, it also smelled a lot like a burning circuit. I checked the insides and did not find anything (I believe it came from the plastic), Thankfully, the smell went away within a few hours.

With the dock, Kingwin includes a mini CD with one-touch backup software. While many people may already have a backup software they prefer, this is only necessary for the use of the “back-up” button on the front of the dock. You do not need to use their software if you do not want to, but it is very difficult for some people to find a backup software that they like, so this is a good inclusion.

Teardown

The dock opens quite easily, once removing the 4 rubber pads on the bottom, there are 4 Phillips screws that need to be removed, then the bottom plate can be pried off with a small flat screwdriver. On the bottom plate there is a weight to keep the dock upright. Most of the rest of the inside is empty space, and the circuit board is both screwed and glued to the case. If you wanted to, you could probably make a much smaller case using the internals, but it would be difficult to prevent if from tipping over if it were made much smaller.

Conclusion

The Kingwin EZ-Dock has all of the features of the most expensive external docks (E-SATA and USB, SATA drive connection) while still being in the lowest third of the price ranges. I used the dock dozens of times while reviewing it. It was very helpful with backing up laptops before reformatting them as I was able to use larger 3.5” desktop hard drives, which I have more of. I was not disappointed by the speed bottleneck over USB, the dock did not seem to slow file transfers unnecessarily. Overall I had a very good experience with the Kingwin EZ-Dock.

Tags: 2.5", 3.5", dock, E-SATA, eSATA, EZ-Dock, hard drive, hdd, Kingwin, Laptop, SATA, USB