Customer Reviews

Eagle Tech ET-CSKESU2-BK 2.5/3.5-Inch Drive Docking Station with Card Reader, USB Hub, eSATA and OTB

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Soon after receiving this docking station, I tested it and found that the USB and eSATA interfaces worked correctly with a 2.5" drive, so I put it aside for a month because I had no immediate use for it. The next time I tried to use it (shortly after the 30-day Amazon return period had expired) I found that the eSATA interface was no longer functional. In addition it made Windows 7 unable to shut down and I had to do a restore in order to get Windows working again.

UPDATE: I have since discovered that the problem was not with the docking station, but with the SATA drivers on my computer. To get the eSATA interface on this device to work with my computer, I had to change the SATA mode in my computer's BIOS from ATA to AHCI. Before changing the BIOS settings however, I had to make changes to the Windows registry which are shown in Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB922976.

I was puzzled like many other reviewers that its eSATA & USB Hub/CardReader do not work together.

Then I stumbled upon a solution by chance and thought I should share.

1) Plug in the eSATA cable and wait for the hard drive to be recognized.

2) THEN....plug in the USB cable and all the USB functions like the Hub and Card Reader will work just fine. I had no problem reading flash cards and connecting additional peripherals to the hub.

Eagle does not mention this in the user manual but I can confirm that all functions work at once. You simply have to plug eSATA first, then USB.

Oh, and don't forget to plug in the AC power adapter (required to power the hard drive when you use eSATA).

I picked one of these up for work. It's working well in eSATA mode (please see the review about setting AHCI mode if you have trouble), but I noticed something peculiar. One of my hard drives does not like to stand straight up like you see in the picture. It would spin up, be detectable in the BIOS, but after a couple minutes, the device would vanish and the hard drive would power down after making some interesting seeking noises. To solve this, I had to tip the entire docking station on its side. Now it works perfectly. The drive is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB.

Hope this helps someone!

One other thing to note it's quite bulky and doesn't look all that great. It also does not use the latest USB 3.0 standard, but will work fine in a USB 3.0 port at USB 2.0 speeds.

This works great especially if you connect it using the SATA port. This make the drive hot swappable. Using the USB port I need to reboot to get it to see the drive. It still work and this is what I needed it for it's just nicer if you have SATA.

Well first of all I got this for an extra HDD that I had laying around from a PS3. It took me awhile to figure out how to get it to work with my PS3. Maybe anybody else trying to do the same thing I did with it will benefit from my little review. First of all I have 64-bit Windows 7 on my laptop and it recognized everything right when I plugged it in to the USB. My biggest problem was trying to figure out how to format the 60GB HDD to FAT32. Windows 7 can only format NTFS and exFAT. The first thing you should do is Google free programs that allow you to format large HDD's to FAT32. I have these programs Partition Wizard 5.0 and FAT32format on my laptop but I can't remember which one did not work. But you will easily be able to tell once you connect the device to your PS3 and if you don't see USB Device come up on your XMB under Videos, Music, or Pictures then you know it didn't work. Other than that the USB ports and Memory Card Reader work right off the back. This was a big feature of why I got this particular Docking Station. Because as I hope all of you know the new Slim PS3's no longer have the memory card reader and the extra 2 USB ports will come in handy. The fact that you can use a 2.5" or 3.5" HDD with this is awesome too. So I would highly recommend this product to anyone who needs an easy way to get use out of an extra HDD laying around and for anyone who is looking for something to use with the PS3.

I bought this thinking I could have a nice portable USB hub with card slots and the added bonus of a fast ESATA hard drive connection to my laptop, but the problem is that you can not use all of the features at the same time.

I was able to get the ESATA port to work once but the problem is that the device will not get power from ESATA nor will the USB ports or card slots work when it is only connected to ESATA.

You CAN NOT use both the ESATA and USB cables at the same time or the device will stop working, probably the reason other people are confused or had problems getting it to function, I am also thinking that connecting both cables at the same time some how damages the device because I can no longer get the ESATA connection to work.

This means you can only use ESATA with the power supply that is included, but then the device is only good for that one function.

In order to use the USB ports and card slots you have to disconnect the ESATA cable and then only use the USB connection, as an added bonus you do not need external power when using the USB cable if it is connected directly to the computer, external power helps but is not needed with just USB.

Everything works with just the USB cable even the hard drive, although not as fast as ESATA...

IF it allowed you the connect both cables and use both ESATA (for the hard drive) and USB (for power and the extra ports) at same time then it would be a great device.

When this arrived it appeared to be a re-ship of a return. It had clearly been opened and it was non-functional, DOA (dead on arrival). Due to personal travel outside the country, we weren't able to return it within Amazon's 30 day window (no argument with that, it's a reasonable return policy).

Now, I must make it clear that I don't really know whether my unit is defective or whether I'm merely using it incorrectly (this is a euphemism intended to downplay my own stupidity. Be sure to keep that in mind.) But I'm no n00b, not at all, no sirree, and I fully expected (from the reviews) that this docking station would be pretty much "plug n' play."

It wasn't. It did _plug_, first in USB 2 mode, then when I obtained an eSATA interface card for my PCI Express slot (the only slot I had unoccupied) it plugged quite admirably in eSATA mode. I couldn't ask for better "plug" performance. The _play_ part, though, was a bit problematic, as it never did manage to occur. Specifically, my computer never recognized it as a disk drive (or as anything else). Oh, yeah--I obtained two brand new WD 500GB WD5000AADS 3.5-in. drives, a couple of those new "Caviar Green" things, and it doesn't matter which one I insert. The performance--rather, LACK of performance--remains unchanged.

I've tried everything I can think of, including order of power-up, restarting after installation, etc., etc.,...nothing has worked so far. I just want to know that I'm not doing something stupid and that I truly have a defective unit before going to the trouble of returning it.

If anyone has any suggestions, even something like "whaddaya waiting for, ya jackwaggit? Send the bloody thing back already!," I welcome all ideas.

Warning! This one-star rating is for the company, Eagle Tech. Do not deal with this company. I recently bought Eagle Tech ET-CSKSU3-BK 2.5"/3.5" SATA to SuperSpeed USB 3.0 version of this docking station, and here's how it went:

First, I've been ordering from Amazon for many years and have had great luck. This is my first complaint, but it isn't about Amazon. The docking station arrived on time just a couple hours ago. I read the very short manual and followed the directions: plugged in the power supply, got a blue light, plugged in the USB 3 cable to my Win7 machine and verified drivers had loaded. I had already removed my Samsung 1TB drive from it's eSATA housing, so after inspecting the unit's connectors I plugged the HDD into the unit. I heard the drive spin up, then the blue light began to blink rapidly and that was all she wrote. The light went out. There was the odor of fried electronics and the unit was dead. I removed my drive and remounted it in the eSATA enclosure, but it would no longer spin up, so it had fried along with the docking station. I got a return label from Amazon and I know they'll refund the price of the docking station, but I'm still out a good HDD that was over twice the price of this piece of junk.

UPDATE:

Not only did Amazon send me another of these units, they also gave me a great deal on a replacement hard drive. So I plugged in the new unit for a full day with a blue light before attempting anything. Finally, believing I had a good unit this time, I plugged in another drive. AND EXACTLY THE SAME THING HAPPENED. Sorry for shouting, but I'm angry. I figured Amazon had gone beyond the call already, so I contacted Eagle Tech and asked them to refund my money and pay for my fried drive. They refused to do anything other than send me another unit. Right. I'm returning the unit to Amazon for refund and I'm eating the HDD as a lesson learned, and I'm hereby warning anyone who buys Eagle Tech products that they are junk and the company will not stand behind them. I'm feeling a little vindictive and will post this wherever I see them list a new product. I'm hoping that eventually will cost them more than the price of replacing my ruined drive. Companies like this shouldn't be allowed to continue selling on Amazon. Letting them market their fryware here is a disservice to Amazon customers.