Freecom 35296 Quattro Docking Station for 2.5/3.5 Inch SATA Hard Drives - Compatible with USB 2.0/FireWire400/800/eSATA

This is a great unit that comes with all the necessary different connector cables for USB / Firewire or SATA. It holds 1 drive at a time, and these are plugged vertically like a slice of toast into the slot on top of the dock. The slot has a hinged flap which fits around a 2.5" drive to keep dust out, and bends out of the way to accommodate a 3.5" drive. There is an illuminated power switch, and to change drives, you unmount it from the computer, press the switch to power down, swap drives, power on and away you go.This is just a dock, with no cooling fan (or noise). The drive stands vertically in the dock and relies on convection for cooling. The drive itself is almost entirely exposed and not protected by the dock, so this is probably best for ad-hoc connection of drives, rather than as a permanent connection for a heavily used drive. That being said, it would probably work fine in that role, it's just that it seems a bit vulnerable. I use it for connecting swappable back-up drives, and for mounting ad hoc drives for formatting etc.I used this to setup a new solid state drive (SSD) that I planned to replace my main HDD with. Connected via Firewire, I was amazed how fast it was when mounted externally in the dock. I could easily have kept the SSD as an externally mounted unit and still seen outstanding performance improvements relative to the existing conventional internal HDD.For me, the best use of this is for temporary connection of drives, particularly for back-ups, as it is quick and easy to connect 2.5" or 3.5" drives, which you can then store safely elsewhere. It's not particularly cheap, but the benefit of having a Firewire or SATA connection is that it is faster than USB, and you can create a bootable clone of your main HDD. If your main HDD should fail, you just put the clone in this dock, boot the computer from it (hold Option (Alt) down on a Mac while re-booting), and within a minute or so you are back up and running. To restore a failed HDD from a conventional backup can take a full day or longer and you'll still need a replacement HDD. If you need to upgrade or replace your cloned HDD, you can just get an inexpensive standard internal drive and plug it into the dock - no need for more expensive fancy drives with all the connectors.

This is an absolutely brilliant bit of kit.My unit came with ALL cables including an IDE ribbon and Molex power to enable connection of the older IDE type Hard Drives.Freecom have obviously addressed the cabling issue for the newer production runs of the dock, so I presume that the people who get one without the cables will be older stock. I got mine dispatched and sold from Amazon, not a third party seller.If you do get a box without the IDE cables, it’s no big deal. I wasn’t expecting to get them. I would think most people who are buying this dock will have a spare ribbon connector lying around.The 4 pin Molex power cable, however, is a little bit of an oddity though. I certainly didn’t have one of those as it’s a FEMALE to FEMALE connector (they are available online for around £3 – search “female to female Molex adapter” on the big auction site ;-)The power adapter is a strange thing. It comes with a 2-pin “euro style” plug and a bundled “shaver type” 2-pin to 3 pin adapter. A bit bulky and unsightly, but it does the job it’s meant to do, namely powering the dock.The dock is childs play to use.1. Connect the cables (power and USB) and slot your SATA drive into the top of the dock OR add the IDE ribbon and Molex if you’re using an IDE drive2. Switch the power on and push the power button on top of the dock. The LED flashes to show connection/data transfer3. Your drive will now appear in “My Computer” and can be used immediately.Ejecting the drive is simple. Power off and press the “eject” button on the dockI’m running the dock under Windows 7 with no problems whatsoever.I’ve attached all types of drives, SATA, IDE, 3.5, 2.5.I’ve read other peoples comments on how the attaching of the IDE drives looks messy and unprofessional, but for me, the addition is more of a helpful “legacy” thing. How many people nowadays will want to be attaching IDE drives? I imagine most people nowadays will be slotting SATA drives into the top.Either way, for me, the fact that it CAN do it is a welcome addition.The unit seems well made and I see no reason why it won’t give many years of service.I’m well pleased with my purchase. It’s such a useful tool to have and I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys tinkering with PC’s.

Nice array of connections. Firewire 800 I've daisy chained to another drive.Only running a few weeks but no problems yet. (running this product with a 2T WD green - keeps cool silent running, great backup drive).ProsComes with decent cables.The connection sockets at the rear seem nice and solid.Quick to swap drivesCons:Some care needs taking to slot in a drive, and not as snug as I'd like; maybe due to varying sizes of drives. There is some play and drive could flap about, not ideal if the drive is accidentally knocked, I've wedged some paper to firm up slot.I can't say that build quality could withstand frequent swapping of drives.The power button doesn't feel very positive, its a very stiff plastic push button which feels it might break if you press too hard. The blue LED is a bit too bright.Quality I'd say should be around the £30 mark, but most enclosures seem pricey against quality.Having said that it hasn't broken yet, and drive performance doesn't seem impaired.Works OK - but longevity unknown, can always find another enclosure if it fails without losing the backup drive.