14 DAY TRIAL // Japanese company Century Tech started shipping its new CRAS2U3CP SATA HDD/SSD cloning dock in stores around the Land of the Rising Sun.
The dock allows the user to clone a SATA HDD/SSD, without using a computer or a laptop.
This method is much faster, simpler and even cheaper and eco-friendly, as you don’t need a PC using 150W of power, nor a laptop with some USB adapters that use around 80W of power. With the help of the CRAS2U3CP dock, all you need is a USB connector.
Since you don’t need a real USB host with some software involvement, this device can be powered by a USB charger. A simple AC to USB adapter will suffice.
Another useful usage mode is connecting two different HDD or SSD drives to a single USB 3.0 port on your computer, without the use of a USB 3.0 HUB. Those are pretty hard to find these days and their price would be half the price of Centrury’s new toy.
The speed advantage Century’s dock has to offer is considerable. While a 200 MB/s transfer rate is not that impressive for a fast SSD, not even the fastest HDD in the world could saturate this bandwidth right now.
The HDDs or SSDs connected to the dock will be displayed as USB Mass Storage devices in the operating system and will be accessible just as any other USB stick.
The top of the unit has a row of LEDs that displays the status of disk cloning.
The small dock measures 70 mm by 16 mm by 65 mm and weighs in at 55 grams. That is 2.75” by 0.62” by 2.55” with a weight of 1.94 ounces in imperial. Pricing sits at 61 USD or 46 Euro for European buyers.
