Thermaltake BlacX Duet - Dual Hard Drive Docking Station

Thermaltake Company Profile

"We live in a world where most things seem to move at the speed of light. At Thermaltake, we feel the same way and that is exactly how Thermaltake conducts itself to deliver innovative, reliable and customer-centric solutions to the worldwide market. Since the beginning of Thermaltake in 1999, it has been at the forefront of creating new and exciting products at a time where most computer users were provided little to no choices for components that may seem irrelevant, but in reality crucial to the performance of a PC.  Thermaltake Server Series solutions, with years of thermal experience and industry leadership, sets its goal on reforming total thermal management in server segment by formulating the perfect mixture of versatility, efficiency and thermal management with each respective server product category: Rackmount Chassis, Server Fixed & Redundant Power Supply and Server CPU Cooling Management Solutions. With its comprehensive line of products available, it enables Thermaltake's core customers to enjoy a one-stop-shop experience, reduce product design-in evaluation period and most important of all, flawless integration process. Each of Thermaltake's strengths enables its customer to focus on their core business while taking advantage of the skills and efficiency of a single thermal management solution partner."
 

Thermaltake is well known for their CPU Coolers, Cases and Power Supplies.  They have been expanding their product lines to include storage peripherals, such as Hard Drive enclosures and Docking Stations.  Today, we will be taking a look at the BlacX Duet dual hard drive docking station.  There is also a standard BlacX docking station from Thermaltake that allows only one drive to be plugged in at a time.  The BlacX Duet gives the user the convenience of having two SATA hard drives connected at the same time via USB 2.0 or e-SATA, allowing them to transfer files from the BlackX Duet docking station to their computers.  This allows for an easy transfer of data between both hard drives connected to the BlacX Duet as well.

Upon opening the box, you will find an AC power adapter, a USB 2.0 cable, an e-SATA cable, and the users manual.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from Thermaltake's Website:

The BlacX Duet:

The BlacX Duet is pretty stylish featuring a matte black color and the BlacX logo on the front of the unit.  Even though it has a square type design, it still looks great on my computer desk.  Its footprint is not too large either.

The power button near the bottom left features blue power LED's for both hard drives.   Also the two slots for the hard drives can be seen here.  A spring loaded plastic flap allows for either a 2.5" or 3.5" hard drive to be inserted into the docking station.

The power LED's for the each hard drive light up.  Note that even if only one hard drive is inserted, both lights will still be active.  The lights blink when there is hard drive activity.

In the picture above, the eject buttons for each hard drive slot can be seen.  Pressing it while a hard drive is inserted will push the hard drive out of the socket and all you have to do afterwards is lift the hard drive out.

Looking at the rear of the BlacX Duet, there is an e-SATA, USB 2.0 and power connector.

Installation and Testing:

The picture above features both 2.5" and 3.5" hard drives installed.

Only one 2.5" hard drive installed.

Only one 3.5" hard drive installed.

Installation was extremely easy.  All you have to do is plug the BlacX Duet's AC Adapter in, put the hard drive in an available slot, plug it into either a USB 2.0 port or an e-SATA port and press the power button.  It is instantly detected, no drivers are needed (Windows 2000 and newer operating systems).

For this docking station, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Two Case

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz (1.40v)

-Xigmatek Dark Knight Heatsink w/120mm Thermaltake ISGC Fan

-eVGA nForce 780i SLi FTW Motherboard

-4GB (2GB x 2) of OCZ Platinum DDRII-1066 Memory

-640GB x 4 Western Digital 7200RPM 32MB Cache Hard Drives

-2x nVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 (55nm) Video Cards @ 667MHz Core / 1053 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card

-Lite-On 6x BD-ROM / 18x Asus DVD-RAM Drives

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

-Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Hard Drives used in the test:

-Maxtor MaxLine III 320GB 3.5" SATA/150 7200RPM Hard Drive

-Fujitsu MHV2080BH 80GB 2.5" SATA/150 5400RPM Hard Drive

*Test conducted with Lavalys Everest 5.02 Hard Drive Benchmark Utility. 

*The BlacX Duet utilizes the JMicron JMB352 chip.

As you can see in the graph above, an eSATA connection provides the fastest transfer rates, while a USB 2.0 connection cuts the transfer rates in half.   When connected to the e-SATA port, the BlacX Duet provides the same transfer speeds as if the drives were connected to an internal SATA port, which is excellent.  The slower USB 2.0 transfer rates create a bottleneck, but still allows files to be transferred in a decent amount of time.   

*For additional / larger pictures of the Thermaltake BlacX Duet , Click Here

Conclusion:

This docking station is perfect for anyone who has a lot of spare hard drives lying around and doesn't want to go through the hassle of opening up their computer to connect them, in order to read and write files.  The BlacX Duet makes it extremely easy to connect an internal hard drive to your computer.  I found it extremely useful when I had to transfer files from my laptop's 2.5" hard drive to my desktop computer's hard drive, because the laptop's motherboard went bad.  The BlacX Duet costs around $40, which is a great value.  With dual hard drive slots and great transfer speeds over e-SATA and USB 2.0 connections, the Thermaltake BlacX Duet is the only hard drive docking station you'll ever need. 

Pros +

-Great file transfer speeds

-Dual hard drive slots

-Small docking station foot print

-Three Year Warranty

Cons -

-Some computers may not support the Port Multiplier Function via e-SATA

Techaddicts.net would like to give this Hard Drive docking station an 'Excellent' rating.

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