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Derrick Kadam photo
Spain, Madrid
1 Level
708 Review
61 Karma

Review on πŸ“ StarTech SDOCK4U33 - 4 Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with UASP, Supports 2.5" and 3.5" SATA SSD HDD, Multiple External Hard Drive Dock (Quad Bay, Black) by Derrick Kadam

Revainrating 4 out of 5

One year later - too many problems

- Verified by Startech. This is pretty reliable WHEN THE DRIVE IS CONNECTED. But the initial connection is unreliable. Something is wrong with the controller design. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes or more to mount a 4TB NTFS drive. The same drives with the same USB3 cable connected to the USB3 port of the same computer are instantly connected to a cheap dual dock. I really wanted to like it, but it was so annoying, so often, that I regret ever getting into it. β€’ Construction is very cheap. They took materials and technology that were barely sufficient for $25 docks and made them even bigger. The plastic is flimsy and every mechanical part flexes, moves askew or "grows". The fan control is bad. The fans are small and noisy. The (unnecessary) drive ejection vanes are particularly bad. Actuators tend to vibrate and rattle due to the lack of damping material. Most of the box is just empty. These are not quality control issues; Rather, savings were made on material and construction. For the $150 market, this should be much more durable and reasonably constructed. That's five times the price and more than twice the price of a decent dual USB3 dock that works properly. Startech really stands by its products, which means very good technical support and an exchange policy. But they don't always design it well to begin with. This is really unfortunate as (A) it is expensive and (B) there is no competition/alternative. Someone has to build a good quad deck with separate controllers and power switches. It's not like this.

Pros
  • POWERED SATA CONTROLLERS: With this hard disk docking station you will be able to work without any problems; It uses independent SATA controllers to ensure uninterrupted data transfer when hot-swapping other drives.
Cons
  • Functionality