SABRENT Hard Drive Docking Station 5-Bay USB-C Enclosure
SABRENT Hard Drive Docking Station 5-Bay USB-C Enclosure for 2.5 HDD & SSD, USB 3.2 Hard Drive Reader, Built-in Cooling Fan (Noise Reduced!) Tool Free (DS-5R15)
From the brand
Pro Docking Stations
| Weight: | 40 g |
| Dimensions: | 15.49 x 10.41 x 16 cm; 40 g |
| Brand: | SABRENT |
| Model: | DS-5R15 |
| Colour: | Black |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | SABRENT |
| Dimensions: | 15.49 x 10.41 x 16 cm; 40 g |
I have 4 external SSD drives that I use to store decades of photographs and video as well as lots of graphic tools, jpegs, svgs etc that I use for design work and they were plugged into 2 separate 2 drive holders that took up quite a bit of room on my desk. I swapped for this and it’s much less cluttered now. It does get a little hot and the fan is a bit noisy but I don’t have it on all the time and I turn the drive holder off at night and sometimes I just take the lid off to cool them down rather than put the fan on. I don’t think I could live with the fan on all the time but I’ve never felt it needed to be. If it wasn’t for the noise from the fan it would be a 5 star but I doubt there’s any way to add a fan without it making a noise.
It works perfectly for those spare 2.5 inch drives from dead laptops that you have hanging around. I was able to combine 4 512gb ones from dead laptop into a useable and quite fast usb backup device.
the problem with the device is that the top fan is terribly loud and only runs at full speed, not to mention the amount of air it actually moves is so negligible it’s pointless ever having it on.
This Sabrent Hard Drive Docking Station was exactly what I needed to access two 250 GB Western Digital Hard Disk Drives which were saved from my old desktop computer. The data was easily recovered and then the hard disks were wiped, ready for reuse or sale.
Now I have used it it is a very good bit of kit, the fan is a bit noisy but I think I can replace it with a silent one.
A really brilliant piece of kit.
Now worked flawlessly for six-months+
Use it with SamSung 2TB 870s on Win11
Can use two SSD, one to backup the other – and/or works just fine with cloud-services too (OD/GD/DropBox etc)
Haven’t had to use what is a bit of noisey fan 99.9% of the time.
Very Highly Recommended.
Using windows 11 and samsung SSD i plugged the device in and turned it on and it opened my drives straight away. i didn’t need to worry about drivers it did it all automatically. the read write speed it very good i was expecting it to be slower. the down side to this product is the fan need to be a lot quieter it is very loud.
I literally installed 1 drive. It showed up.
I installed second drive it showed up as a different drive. 3 and 4 the same. Works with the Mac and tested it on friend’s windows machine.
IT DID’NT LET US DOWN.
Transferred easily with Apple Music and Apple TV.
Installed new movies overnight.
(68 movies and internet speed dependent)
So shows all 4 drives individually across the network
( set up but by the connection to the Mac)
Accessed easily across the network, no glitches so far.
I like it because it’s 1 unit, 1 connection, no trailing wires. No confusion, the fan can be switched on/ off manually.
The only issue with this unit is it will hot swap it’s self with no problems . But Mac ‘s don’t like this. And throws a fit. It’s best to eject the drive on the Mac
Then swap it. Mac will detect the new drive.
Windows machine didn’t have this problem.
But to be honest I’ve had this problem with Mac’s and other drives. If your a Mac user you’ll already know this. I’d recommend this unit and it’s brilliant for media content.
Overall works quite well loses a star as the fan has to be controlled manually rather than being controlled by a thermostat.
I’m using it with three ssd’s on the kids xbox one x (only reason 4 aren’t installed is because the xbox only accepts 3 external drives at a time). It’s being working well with no faults for several months now.
Don’t really use the HOT swap option but nice you can replace defect drives.
Some complain about the fans, most external drives arrive in a slab of metal and plastic with no fans, this has space and venting. If you’re using an intensive task turn on the fans, pity it’s not automatic with a heat sensor. Tidied up my desk as multiple hard drives now in two cases for me.
UPDATE – looked at the bigger 5TB hard drives but discovered this unit accepts HDDs & SSDs up to 12mm thick some larger drives are 15mm thick otherwise still a great enclosure.
UPDATE: have been adding drives and upon fitting a fourth drive my PC could recognise them all only recognised 3 drives. Found issue was needed a dedicated powered USB hub to support the power needed. Some reviews seem to show the same. Split feed from all your other drives and things work great.
Really simple to use, plug everything in the only place it goes, 2 cables in total (mains power and USB A-B 3.0).
The fan in the top hooks up via a magnetic connection so can be removed whilst on. Though overall the fan is noisy and doesn’t make a huge diff to the temp, but doesn’t neaten the look and prevents dust getting in.
The only downside is swapping drives, if you add or remove a single drive, all of them unmount, and can’t be remounted until you turn it off and back on; or reinsert the USB cable. So it wasn’t as hot swap-able as I hoped.
Update 1 month in: After very occasional use since purchase the units fan is now making a very loud whirring noise to the point I’ve had to use it without the fan (which is a big reason I bought it in the first place).
Update: the whirring noise lasted a few day but since then no odd noise at all. This is a highly convenient way of dealing with raw 2.5″ drives and also transporting them if need be.
If you rescue some drive from old laptops you’ll have yourself a very And fast cheap backup solution or storage.
Reminds me of switching isolinear chips on the Enterprise, but I’m geeky like that.