Cavalry Hard Drive Duplicator / USB 3.0 Dual Dock - $60 Shipped @ Meritline

N 4 1, thx & rep'd OP! .......

it's not just no damn dock!!!!!! you left out the important details my man!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is...r_embedded

Cavalry "Retriever" Series Dual Bay USB 3.0 2.5"/3.5" SATA Hard Drive Duplicator Docking Station, Copy Entire OS (Bit by Bit Copy) Without A Computer - Black, Model EN-CAHDD2BU3C-ZB

but it doesn't have eSata which is a kick to the balls

the only problem i see with this is if you want to transfer to a ssd - most hard drives will be larger than the ssd your installing and if that is the case this won't work

Quote from trader14 : the only problem i see with this is if you want to transfer to a ssd - most hard drives will be larger than the ssd your installing and if that is the case this won't work

And it will only copy if the destination drive is larger # of sectors than the source drive.

If smaller then it only copies up to the sector count and then you can partition the remainder part of the drive for use for other stuff.

The key is this is entirely 'headless' and without smather -- It will COMPLETELY DESTROY the contents of the destination drive regardless of it's partitioned/formatted state if you chose to copy the drive.

It copies sector by sector so a 200 GB out of a 2TB drive will still take the entire 2TB time to copy.

Still a good deal if you have a stack of matched size drives (e.g. Target Black Friday 2TB ) and want a simple, no PC solution to duplicate, PLUS get the benefits of complete any-time swapping of your drives with high speed USB 3 access. (eSata will not give you that unless you have a special $$$ card added into your computer)

Wish they had the non-dup version (just the USB 3 dock) for $29 or less like it was a few months ago (or $50 with included 1 TB drive)

Also much rather buy this from NewEgg or Amazon with better return policies. Here is 0 return -- deal with manufacturer only if any issues.


I was JUST about to buy this (after reading the 10 NewEgg and 2 Amazon and absolutely no other reviews) but then I started reading the NewEgg reviews for the other 2 dual docks that Cavalry has, and they aren't pretty.. Same dock, just one is USB 2 and the other us USB3 without the duplicate functionality.

After reading them I decided not to risk $59.99 on something that may not support USB 3 hot swap and worse may actually corrupt the drives I'd be willing to risk $30 on the non-duplicator version but definitely don't think $60 is worth it for just the added feature with potential risk -- especially from Meritline where I cannot return it for any reason and have to deal with manufacturer.

WD velociraptor drives don't fit in these slide in docks

Quote from dj-3lusion : it's not just no damn dock!!!!!! you left out the important details my man!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is...r_embedded Cavalry "Retriever" Series Dual Bay USB 3.0 2.5"/3.5" SATA Hard Drive Duplicator Docking Station, Copy Entire OS (Bit by Bit Copy) Without A Computer - Black, Model EN-CAHDD2BU3C-ZB but it doesn't have eSata which is a kick to the balls

USB3 raw bit-rate is 60% faster than eSATA

Quote from ackNnak : USB3 raw bit-rate is 60% faster than eSATA

LOL... People need to realize eSata is obsolete with USB3 becoming the new standard.

Quote from ackNnak : USB3 raw bit-rate is 60% faster than eSATA

not really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqlqCoQMLsQ

Quote from beefcake78 : LOL... People need to realize eSata is obsolete with USB3 becoming the new standard.

not really either http://www.maximumpc.com/article/...ter_usb_30

Quote from dj-3lusion : not really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqlqCoQMLsQ

Yes, really. Notice I said "raw data rate" USB3 is 10x faster than USB2 or 4.8Gb/s vs 480Mb/s eSATA is 3Gb/s max.

However, YMMV is the rule. The NCIX test showed that USB3 is only 2X faster than USB2. This clearly indicates there is inefficieny either in the drivers and/or the mobo hardware chipset. Given that both of these will mature with standard it is only a matter of time before the same test will show USB3 is faster.

Quote from ackNnak : Yes, really. Notice I said "raw data rate" USB3 is 10x faster than USB2 or 4.8Gb/s vs 480Mb/s eSATA is 3Gb/s max. However, YMMV is the rule. The NCIX test showed that USB3 is only 2X faster than USB2. This clearly indicates there is inefficieny either in the drivers and/or the mobo hardware chipset. Given that both of these will mature with standard it is only a matter of time before the same test will show USB3 is faster.

Either way usb 3.0 is fairly new and many people do not have it. It is not something you can just add or add with a new cable, you need a new laptop in the case of portable computing. So yea even if your statement is true, which is not 100 percent conclusive, esata would be better for a lot of people. At least have both for that price.

Quote from dj-3lusion : not really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqlqCoQMLsQ not really either http://www.maximumpc.com/article/...ter_usb_30

With a USB enclosure (which this basically is) you're converting from SATA to USB and so the fastest you can transfer is the minimum of the two technologies. With eSATA there is no real conversion so you're just transferring at SATA speeds.

So even if USB is faster than SATA you still have the SATA speed bottleneck to deal with.

Still, USB 3.0 enclosures/docks should provide close to native SATA speeds.