Product: Thermaltake BlacX SATA hard drive dock
Manufacturer: Thermaltake
MSRP: $64.99     Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
Author: Nick
Date: September 7, 2009

Once, accessing data off of spare hard drives took more effort than it was worth. The introduction of inexpensive external enclosures made swapping hard drives much easier than opening up the computer was, but enclosures can still be a hassle for those hard drives you only need quick access to files. Like recovering files when Windows won’t boot, or grabbing a single document or picture off of an old hard drive. Enter: the hard drive dock. Hard drive docks allow hard drives to be swapped quickly and easily, without screws or tools, making them ideal for those brief times you need to use an internal drive externally. Today we will be looking at Thermaltake’s BlacX SATA hard drive dock.

Manufacturer’s Specifications/Features

• Supports all 2.5” & 3.5” SATA hard drives up to 2 TB
• Hot-swap capability for easy access to multiple hard drives
• Supports eSATA transfer speed up to 3Gbps and USB 2.0 speeds up to 480Mbps
• Compatible with Windows & Mac OS
• Compact docking station design maximizes heat dissipation

Packaging/Contents:

The BlacX is comes in a black cardboard box that does a good job of displaying the product’s features without being too overwhelming. Inside the packaging, everything is in plastic bags to prevent from being scratched during shipping.

Included with the BlacX is an eSATA and USB cable, power adapter, and the standard instructions.

First Impressions

At first glance, the BlacX looks a lot like many other hard drive docks on the market. It is roughly 5” wide, 3.5” deep, and 2.5” tall. The BlacX has a matte black finish which does not show finger prints (that is definitely important for a product that will be handled a lot).

I was extremely impressed with the build quality of the Thermaltake BlacX. Other hard drive docks we previously reviewed here at Maximum CPU fell short in this respect. The dock itself is constructed of a hard plastic which had very little give when pushed on.

When a hard drive is being used in the dock, the back of the hard drive which contains a circuit board is completely exposed. The amount of exposed circuit board depends greatly on the hard drive being used and will vary between hard drives. While this did not present a problem during testing, it is worth noting that care must be taken because of this. This is a common factor in all hard drive docks though, and is not a specific failing of the Thermaltake BlacX.

Usage

The BlacX can either be connected to a computer by USB 2.0 or eSATA using the included cables. I would highly recommend using eSATA if you have the option as the speed difference is extremely noticeable (more on this later). To start using the dock, simply drop either a 2.5” or 3.5” SATA hard drive into the slot and allow Windows a couple seconds to detect and install the device. After that, you can use the hard drive currently docks as you would any other external hard drive.

Thermaltake’s BlacX held the hard drive a lot more secure than other hard drive docks we have reviewed here at Maximum CPU. However, the hard drive could still wobble slightly when the BlacX was tilted. Under normal circumstances, where the dock is going to be sitting stationary on a desk, I do not see this being a problem.

When it comes time to remove the drive, it is recommending that you use the “Safely Remove Hardware” dialog that sits down on the Windows Taskbar. After that you can use the power button on the back of the BlacX and push the eject button on the front of the dock to remove the hard drive from the dock itself.

Performance

To test the synthetic performance, I inserted a 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA II hard drive with 32MB buffer (model # WD5001AALS-00L3B2) into the dock. I then ran the file system benchmark in Sandra 2009 SP3 3 times on both interfaces as well as when the same hard drive was used internally and connected directly to the motherboard via SATA. The results were then averaged.

For the real world tests I transferred both a 900MB file as well as a 3.2GB file a total of 3 times each and averaged the results. The average transfer time for both files are displayed below:

Conclusion

For those times when you quickly want to grab files off a SATA hard drive, Thermaltake’s BlacX hard drive dock is the perfect tool for you. It is easy to use and with the addition of eSATA not present in previous versions of the BlacX, it is just as fast as having physically inserting the hard drive into your computer. However, due to the exposed nature of the hard drive, I wouldn’t recommend using the BlacX (or any exposed HDD dock) for a long term external storage solution.

Pros

+ Simple to use
+ Supports USB 2.0 and eSATA
+ Great build quality
+ Can be used with both 2.5” and 3.5” SATA hard drives
+ Holds the hard drive more securely than other docks

Cons

- High MSRP compared to competitors

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Tags: BlacX, dock, eSATA, hard drive, SATA, Thermaltak, USB