They say that efficiency lies in simplicity, and the new SATA HDD docking station from Thermaltake seems to prove that this is right. The device looks neat and common, but it is extremely functional and might come in handy especially for those who use large-capacity hard disks as swap-drives.

The docking station is built vertically, and can hold either a 3.5″ or 2.5″ disk without the need of an enclosure. The hard drive is placed on top of the adapter, facing its connectors down. After having it slided into the docking station, the user instantly gains access to its full contents.

Plugging it just like a common Flash-based USB disk drive is possible due to the fact that both SATA and eSATA standards (versions 1 and 2) are hot-swappable. This means that the disk can be inserted into or pulled off the system at run-time, without the need to shut it down. One notable exception though, the hot-swap feature is not available for the disk that runs the operating system. Removing it at run-time will make the system freeze and data loss will occur.

The HDD docking station connects to the computer via a spare USB 2.0 port, although rumor has it that Thermaltake is secretly cooking an eSATA version of the adapter. Although an External-SATA connector will dramatically boost the data transfer rates, the USB 2.0 standard makes sure that it can be hooked up to any computer, no matter the model.

The Blac X docking station features an innovative mechanism for safely ejecting the SATA drives when they are not needed anymore. It is similar to the Eject lever used back in the Terminator consoles, and, although it's not "state-of-the-art" sophistication, it will spare the hard drive the detaching mechanical shock, while being gentle to the drive's interconnects.

There is no word on pricing and availability yet, but Thermaltake mentioned that it will available "soon" and will support both Mac OS X and Windows operating systems.



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