Review of the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone Hard Drive Duplicator Dock

Would you like a very small portable hard drive duplicator? Did we mention it was also standalone? Oh, and you can use it with your PC to access the drives. Here we review the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone Hard Drive Duplicator Dock.

The SATDUPUE Portable SATA Hard Drive Duplicator with eSATA and USB offers an easy, hardware solution for duplicating/cloning a SATA hard drive, or can be connected to a desktop and laptop computer for use as an external hard drive dock.

As a standalone hard drive duplicator, the SATDUPUE lets you can create an exact 1-to-1 sector clone from one hard drive to another, including partition and boot sector information and all data, at a rate of up to 72 MBps; as an external hard drive dock, it supports plug-and-play installation and can be connected to a host computer through either USB 2.0 or eSATA, providing data transfer speeds of up to 480 Mbps or 3 Gbps respectively. Large capacity drives (tested with up to 4TB 3.5″ and 1TB 2.5″ drives per bay) can be used to greatly enhance your computer’s storage/backup capabilities.

Who are StarTech?

From their website:

StarTech.com is your one-stop source for every connectivity part you need. From the latest technology to legacy products — and all the parts that bridge the old and new — we can help you find the parts that connect your solutions.

We make it easy to locate the parts, and we quickly deliver them wherever they need to go. Just talk to one of our tech advisors or visit our website. You’ll be connected to the products you need in no time.

It was StarTech.com’s 25th anniversary in 2010, and to celebrate we developed a fresh new look for the company that we hope you will like!

Features

• Standalone Sector-by-Sector hard drive copying including the HPA
• Push-button switching between Duplicator mode and Docking Station mode
• Compact, pocket-sized form factor
• A single SATA revision 2 compliant eSATA host interface, with supported data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps
• High Speed USB 2.0 compliant host interface, with supported transfer rates up to 480 Mbps
• LED progress bar for duplication status
• Supports both 2.5in and 3.5in form factor SATA hard drives
• Supports SATA revision 1/2/3 (1.5/3.0/6.0 Gbps) drives
• Hot-Swap and Plug-and-Play compatible

What’s in the Box?

The box contains the dock, a power supply (which is small), and USB connector, an eSATA cable and an instruction manual.

A Closer Look

The Source and Destination ports are clearly labelled so there can be no mistake which drives connects where. The same is also true of both the USB and eSATA ports.

There are two buttons on the top of the unit, one to start whichever process you select, and the other to change between duplication and PC mode.

The lights also light up and change colour depending on what you are doing.

Using the Dock

Connecting drives to the dock is simply a case of putting them together and then switching the dock on. It powers the drives so you don’t need additional power connectors.

When a drive is connected, the corresponding light with be on. Green indicates PC mode where you can access the contents of either or both drives on your PC. One thing to note here is that if you only want to access a single drive on your PC then you need to connect it to the connector marked Destination (yes, I know, Source would have been better, but that’s how it works).

The Red light indicates duplication mode for copying the contents of one drive to another.

Final Thoughts

The dock is very small and very light weight, making it very easy to carry. Even the power supply is small!

The dock provides the ability to duplicate a drive without the need for using a computer, and also the ability to use the dock to access one or two hard drives on your computer, using either USB (USB 2.0 only unfortunately) or eSATA (eSATA being the faster of the two options).

The dock is incredibly simple to use and is just a case of pressing a button if you want to duplicate a drive, and then waiting while the duplication takes place.

While the drive is being duplicated you can see the progress on the status lights. Whilst these don’t give you an idea of how long the process is going to take, at least you can see roughly where in the process it currently is.

I found duplicating a drive to be relatively quick compared to other drive duplicators I have tried in the past, but obviously the speed will depend on the speed of the drive and also the size of the drives in question.

All in all a highly recommended addition to your storage arsenal! But I would love to see a version with USB 3.0 please StarTech!

Cost wise, the dock retails for around £70, which is a good price for what it can do!