Covered USB3.0 SATA HDD Docking Station Review

Back in October, I posted a review of a hard drive docking station from Inateck. I recently received their updated unit for review, the FD1006C model HDD docking station. If you're not familiar with the concept of a docking station, it offers a common way to plug in peripherals to a laptop. With the case of the FD1006C unit, that peripheral is a 2.5''/3.5''SATA HDD/SSD. The earlier FD1005 model connects to the same 2.5''/3.5''SATA HDD/SSD devices. The difference with the FD1006C is the dust cover.

Instead of the hard drive sitting out in the open gathering dust, the unit hides under a sliding panel. You then connect the docking station to the machine through the USB port, and you have access to the hard drive as if it was just another internal drive, or more like a thumb drive.

The back of the unit has just three things, one end of the USB connector, the power connector, and a power switch. You don't want to repetitively turn the unit on and off, but can turn it off without having to disconnect power. The top of the units has two lights. A green light to indicate when the unit has power and a blue light to indicate when the power switch is on.

For me, I need the unit because the power supply in my desktop died. The drive was still good, I just didn't have a backup to the last minute the power supply died. I should copy everything off it and get rid of the drive, but I keep the drive around and get what I need off it when I find I don't have it elsewhere. The addition of the case to keep the hard drive under cover should keep the drive dust free for a long time.

Setup of the new model was actually a little easier than the last. Since the drive goes flat into the case and not perpendicular, it is more visible how/where to connect. The hot swap / plug-and-play nature allowed the drive to work without rebooting. And it is quick, with Super Speed USB 3.0 offering speeds up to 5Gbps.

If you have an old hard drive sitting around from an old system, or just looking for an external connector to an internal hard drive, the FD1006C unit will serve you well.

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned product for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received. All opinions stated are my own and may differ from yours. See my disclosure policy for more information.