SATA docking station.
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From: David Empson on 30 Jun 2010 21:21 Michael Vilain <vilain(a)NOspamcop.net> wrote: > In article <2010063015433216807-not(a)dotcom>, > thepixelfreak <not(a)dot.com> wrote: > > > Anyone here use a SATA docking station like > > > > http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers3.php ?? > > > > I'm wondering how well they work for continuous use as in a cheap > > alternative to an external drive. I've got a couple external drives > > (one firewire and one USB) and I don't believe either have a fan in > > them. My initial concern was that continuous use might present some > > thermal issues but none of the other enclosures I have have a fan in > > them. > > Given that these are USB 3.0 and there isn't a USB 3.0 card for MacOS > yet, what's your point? I'd wait until that whole thing isn't so > bleeding edge before I went anywhere near this thing. > > A friend has this one > > http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php > > and can't say enough good things about it. I have a Voyager-Q (the Firewire800/400/eSATA/USB2 model). Works well, though I haven't used it heavily or for continuous operation. I'm also not sure about the longevity of the SATA connector if the drive is swapped frequently. I'm only swapping mine occasionally. Given that the hard drive is exposed to the air, natural ventilation should do pretty well, and the chimney effect from heat rising off the hard drive may assist in cooling the circuitry inside the dock. (The power supply is separate, so internal heat should be relatively minor.) I have other hard drives in fanless aluminium enclosures which haven't had a problem for several years, though they have a larger surface area from which to radiate heat. -- David Empson dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
From: BreadWithSpam on 1 Jul 2010 12:07 thepixelfreak <not(a)dot.com> writes: > Anyone here use a SATA docking station like > > http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers3.php ?? > > I'm wondering how well they work for continuous use as in a cheap > alternative to an external drive. I've got a couple external drives > (one firewire and one USB) and I don't believe either have a fan in I have an earlier model of that, (USB 2.0, not 3.0) and use it sometimes with my old iMac. BTW, OWC still sells the USB 2 version and for about half the price of the USB 3 one. Since you almost certainly don't have USB 3 on your computer, you might as well save a couple of bucks. It's a little flaky, and I don't think it's a heat issue. If i leave it attached and the drive mounted for a while, eventually, no matter what I've done with it, the drive won't unmount. I get the "some application is using the drive" warning. This never happens with my various firewire externals (and I have about a half a dozen that get swapped in and out for various reasons). But it happens somewhat regularly with the Voyager USB. That said, it's a great and easy and convenient drive mount for doing the occasional clone. A naked SATA drive is cheaper and takes up less space to store than a fully enclosed drive. But it's a little flaky. My brother tried their quad-port version (with firewire) and went through three or four of them (sending them back to OWC/Newertech) because they all failed on him. I don't remember the specifics, but he was pretty unhappy with the product. Only thing from OWC he's ever had a problem with. -- Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
From: David Empson on 1 Jul 2010 20:53 <BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net> wrote: > thepixelfreak <not(a)dot.com> writes: > > > Anyone here use a SATA docking station like > > > > http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers3.php ?? > > > > I'm wondering how well they work for continuous use as in a cheap > > alternative to an external drive. I've got a couple external drives > > (one firewire and one USB) and I don't believe either have a fan in > > I have an earlier model of that, (USB 2.0, not 3.0) and use it > sometimes with my old iMac. BTW, OWC still sells the USB 2 version > and for about half the price of the USB 3 one. Since you almost > certainly don't have USB 3 on your computer, you might as well save > a couple of bucks. > > It's a little flaky, and I don't think it's a heat issue. If i leave > it attached and the drive mounted for a while, eventually, no matter > what I've done with it, the drive won't unmount. I get the "some > application is using the drive" warning. > > This never happens with my various firewire externals (and I have > about a half a dozen that get swapped in and out for various > reasons). But it happens somewhat regularly with the Voyager USB. Never seen that with my quad interface Voyager (via FW800), but I have occasionally had that problem with other external drives. I highly doubt the Voyager itself is a factor - more likely to be the content of that particular drive causing something to keep a file open and refusing to let go. The Voyager is functionally equivalent to the bridge board in a normal enclosure, and I think mine even uses the same chipset as most of my other enclosures. > That said, it's a great and easy and convenient drive mount for doing > the occasional clone. A naked SATA drive is cheaper and takes up less > space to store than a fully enclosed drive. But it's a little flaky. > > My brother tried their quad-port version (with firewire) and went > through three or four of them (sending them back to OWC/Newertech) > because they all failed on him. I don't remember the specifics, but > he was pretty unhappy with the product. Only thing from OWC he's ever > had a problem with. Good to know. I've had mine for almost a year without problems. -- David Empson dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
From: John Albert on 1 Jul 2010 23:22 "I'm wondering how well they work for continuous use as in a cheap alternative to an external drive. I've got a couple external drives (one firewire and one USB) and I don't believe either have a fan in them. My initial concern was that continuous use might present some thermal issues but none of the other enclosures I have have a fan in them." This is the one that I use: http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Connecland-CL-ENC50013-Docking-Station/dp/B002BXG36O/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1253062702&sr=1-22 Works fine and the price is right if you don't need USB3 (who does, right now?). Regarding the heat issue, I've had a drive mounted in mine for a couple of hours, and it does get fairly warm to the touch. Not sure if just "being in the open air" without some form of "forced cooling" (a fan) provides enough heat removal from the surface of the drive. Having said that, I normally don't use the dock for long periods of time -- I don't think that this is the intent of the design. It looks to me to be more for "occassional usage", such as backups and archiving, etc. For these purposes, it works very well. There are other "pluggable/switchable" solutions that would probably work better for continuous operation, but they will cost more money.... - John
From: Tom Harrington on 6 Jul 2010 19:17 In article <nospam-5D4CAC.01225607072010(a)f051237062.adsl.alicedsl.de>, Matti Haveri <nospam(a)here.invalid> wrote: > In article <2010063015433216807-not(a)dotcom>, > thepixelfreak <not(a)dot.com> wrote: > > > Anyone here use a SATA docking station like > > > > http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers3.php ?? > > I have a Voyager-Q (the Firewire800/400/eSATA/USB2 model). Works well, > though I haven't used it heavily or for continuous operation -- only for > backups. > > BTW, it doesn't boot my old PPC PowerBook G4 but boots my new Intel Mac > mini. Is that using Firewire or USB? I'd expect it to work with Firewire but not USB, just because of limitations in the PowerBook. -- Tom "Tom" Harrington Independent Mac OS X developer since 2002 http://www.atomicbird.com/
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