Review on Syba CL ENC50060 Docking Station Backup by Paul Newton

I was a bit hesitant due to mixed reviews. The great price and design made me want to try it. Since heat and friction are the enemies of mechanical devices, I've always done my best to keep my drives cool. All of my previous docking stations were of the "toaster" design, with half the hard drive remaining in the case (heat chamber). The open design helps cool better than any I've had. I also installed a 5v usb fan with velcro to dissipate the heat. The fan is pointing to Source A's slot (probably the only one I'll be using). When I need cloning, I use my desktop fan. I tested several HDDs and SSDs and the station works very well. I have an old Seagate drive that I needed to assign a drive letter to. Windows Disk Management recognized the drive but did not mount it. A few mouse clicks in the disk manager were enough. Other hard drives and solid-state drives can be easily integrated. Unlike other docks I've used, this one supports SMART data with no issues. During testing, I burned several large image files onto a standard 7200 RMP disk. The transfer rate was 115-130 MB through the USB 3 port. I then restored the image file to the same drive and wrote about 80GB of data. The temperature peaked at 30°C and dropped immediately after image restoration was completed. I might find a reason to use the clone feature, but I didn't buy it for that. In summary, I am more than satisfied with this station. The hoarder in me is telling me to buy more while they're still available. Great performance at a great price.