Review on Crest USB Docking Station Sata by Kaushik Hall

The manufacturer provided me with a sample to use and an honest evaluation. I like the IO Crest USB 3.0 docking station. In my IT practice, I often work with bare hard drives. I clone them to update or restore a drive, make bit-for-bit copies for forensic analysis, use them for backups, or just copy a few files to a new system for a client. Most of the time I've put these bare drives in an old system case and used a CD-based drive cloning tool, or I've used my reliable and flexible but slow Apricorn USB 2.0 drive adapter. IO Crest is a very civilized alternative to 2.5" and 3.5" SATA III and earlier drives, and with USB 3.0 speeds, it gets the job done quickly. The docking station comes with a power adapter, a USB 3.0 cable and a small booklet. The dock itself has a 2.5" SATA drive opening and a flip cover that folds down when a 3.5" drive is inserted into the dock. The base is big enough to stand stably but not too big. One of my favorite features is the front panel power button with a touch button (as opposed to a mechanical button). I don't like the idea of plugging a SATA drive into a "hot" SATA connector and I can clearly see when the power is on or off with the IO Crest docking station. The USB 3.0 interface is a fast USB 3.0 interface. I ran some copy tests and some Crystalmark tests, and the dock seemed to move data around as fast as not all of those new 2.5" and 3.5" mechanical drives I've tried. Posting test results seems pointless as your drives will surely give different results depending on the drive. Conclusion: USB 3.0 is fast when used with a USB 3.0 port. As with any hard drive interface, it is important to properly disconnect the drive. The guide covers this for Windows. As with most USB devices, the drives will normally mount automatically when power is applied to the IO Crest. The IO Crest Dock is a fairly simple device that makes it easy to use bare drives for many purposes. It works on Windows and Linux (I don't have a Mac, but I expect it will work fine there too). I am very comfortable. Now connecting someone else's hard drive is as easy as inserting it into the docking station and turning it on. Very easy! And it gets 5 stars for a simple product that just works.