Customer Reviews

Thermaltake BlacX Duet eSATA USB Dual Hard Drives Docking Station ST0014U

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Bought the unit for a computer with P7P55D Pro motherboard running Linux (Fedora 12). The system recognized the port multiplier without issues; two disks over eSATA worked out of the box. Tested it with two 500G drives (a Seagate and a WDC). Reading from a single drive gives a decent ~75 MB/s; simultaneous reads from two drives drop the rate to 45 MB/s.

A major problem, though: while idle, the drives hover around ~47 degC. With ~1hr of heavy reading, they heat up to ~60 degC (with ambient temps around ~20 degC). The design of this dock blocks _all_ airflow to the bottom end of the drives, leading to severe overheating. This makes BlackX practically useless for duplication of larger drives; they'll overheat/fail long before the duplication has finished. E.g., I managed to copy ~150G of a 500G drive before it hit 60degC and stopped.

Looks like a major design flaw; plan to return it.

I bought this mainly for the fast eSata support, but was greatly dissapointed to find out that my computer will not support dual eSata as it doesn't have port multiplier functionality. My computer is fairly new as well and running Windows 7 Professional. Most people won't know if their computer has port multiplier functionality until they buy an item such as this and try it. Dual drives work good using USB, but you only get 400MB transfer rates and not 3GB as you do with eSata. The eSata with 1 drive does work but is somewhat flakey as well. What will happen is at least 25% of the time when you reboot the computer and you are using the dock connected via eSate cable, the computer will lose sight of the dock and tell you there is no eSata dock/drive connected. Only way to redetect the dock and drive is to power down the dock as well as computer, then power on the dock, let the drive initialize for approx. 30 seconds, then power back on the computer. Using the USB cable, this does not happen, so one can only assume the eSata connectivity between the port and the computer is flakey. Other than that, I like the dock as it's fairly light and easy to use amoung several computers to backup and copy data too.

The product works great when you are just reading from the drive on a Mac. The problem comes when you try to write. The drive get's messed up and can't write any longer. You get an Error -50 when you try a write operation. From the finder it's easy to see, but some applications don't handle the error veery well and you can think the file ha been updated when it hasn't. If you force eject the drive and remount you can write to the drive but after a while the error 50 comes up again. The single drive version works great on the Mac but not the double drive version.

I bought a 1TB Western Digital My Book Essential Edition about 3 months ago for my PC-based TV upstairs. It worked fine, then one day just stopped. I could feel it trying to start when I played with the power cord. WD sent me a replacement to try a new power cord, but that didn't solve the problem. I could keep the new drive and send back the old one but there's no way to get all the data off if I do that, so I broke the warranty, popped open the cover, and plugged the old drive in this Thermaltake Duet using the USB connector. (My machine doesn't have an eSATA port; a mistake I won't make again.) My Vista 64-bit machine recognized it and started the drive promptly. Everything is still on my WD drive, and I now have a slot for another drive if I want to expand further.

Before you buy, make sure you do your homework as to what's on your machine. (Duh!!!) If you expect to use eSATA and want to plug in two drives, be sure you have a port multiplier on your eSATA port, which is, apparently, a device on the card ([...]). Might not be easy info to get since I found it mentioned on only one of the dozen+ eSATA controller cards & laptop adapter cards I just looked at. However, some of them mention supporting RAID, and I'm beginning to wonder if that means they must have the multiplier device.

Details specific to Dell Studio XPS 16 laptop:

I tried to use 2 drives via eSATA on my Dell Studio XPS 16 laptop. The laptop could see only drive 1. The message says "A storage device was connected. If this device is a port multiplier, only port 0 of the port multiplier will be active."

After much effort, I found a document from Intel saying that the PM45 express chipset, which the XPS 1640 uses, does not support port multiplier. [...] Document: "Intel® I/O Controller Hub 9 (ICH9) Family Datasheet".

It looks like only ICH9R supports port multiplier. See article [...] The XPS 16 uses ICH9M-E/M.

I am disappointed that I can't use 2 drives on the Duet via eSATA on my (2 month old) XPS 16. Good thing the Duet also comes with a USB connector. With the USB connection, XPS 1640 can see both the drives. Using USB, note that "Safely remove hardware" will release both drives at the same time.

Also, note that Intel Matrix Storage Manager needs to be installed on XPS 1640 to get the "Safely remove hardware" (hot swap) feature for the eSATA connection.

I like Thermaltake products. I have been using their external enclosures for a while. I like the dual drive design. I like the eSATA speed. I wish my laptop supports port multiplier. I am sure more computers will support that in the future, but if you are buying the Duet now, you should check if your computer supports port multiplier via eSATA.

Using USB for 2 drive is just fine. I bought it with the intention to run 2 to 3 virtual machines on each drive at the same time (4 to 6 VM total, concurrent). eSATA would have made a big difference.

As of today, I give the product 4 star --- simply because port multiplier on eSATA is not widely supported as yet.

First off, this product is working PERFECTLY for me. No complaints. No reservations.

I have a DROBO which had 4 1Tb drives in it since I set it up. I have grown out of that and decided to add two bigger drives to the DROBO. What to do with the 2 drives coming out of the DROBO? I had originally thought I'd buy complete external drive housings, but these would cost almost as much as the drives themselves. I had never seen the "dock" solution.

After reading the reviews about this unit, I was confused and felt I was taking a risk. But I sprung for it anyway. It arrived; I popped in the two 1 Tb drives; plugged in the power; plugged in the USB cable to a Mac Mini (running Snow Leopard); voila !! The Mac asked me if I'd like to initialize the drives -- which I did.

From that point on they have functioned perfectly. I've backed up over 200 Gb to each of them without a hitch. Heat? What heat? They need to be in a place where the air can freely and naturally circulate around them (unrestricted).

That's it!! This is a great product and a real cost saver compared to buying individual drive boxes.

In short, totally satisfied.

I bought the BlacX Duet with 2 WD green 2.0TB 3.5 sata drives and have had great success. I'm using it with a USB connection and am having no heat problems. The only problem I had was this: I connected the usb cable and then started up the unit with both 2tb drives in it. The problem I ran into was XP would only see one of the drives. I resolved this by starting up the unit first with both drives in it and then plugging in the usb cord. I also used the unit with 2.5 sata drives with no problems. I'm impressed to say the least...

My return window for this product has expired, as I spent all my time replacing the esata cards, thinking that it was an issue with them.
For reference, I have been trying to get this unit to work on a Macbook Pro (non-unibody) running Snow Leopard 10.6.2

I tried a Sonnet Tempo Expresscard/34 -- which supports port multiplication,
along with an Apiotek Expresscard/34 card that also supports port multiplication.
Both of these cards use the Silicon Image 3132 chipset.

After installing newest drivers for the Sonnet card, flashing the bios for the Apiotek card -- and even installing beta drivers from the Silicon Image site that supposedly resolve issues with Snow Leopard -- the card will not mount the drives. If I navigate to Disk Utility, the program then locks up with the pinwheel.

If I use my older Syba, 1-port JMicron-based expresscard/34 esata controller -- which also is listed as supporting port multiplication (but only insert one of the drives), the drive immediately works as normal. If I insert the 2nd drive, however, it simply does not mount.

I had also done a reformat of my Mac, and this occurred both before and after that -- so this leads me to believe that it's not some "funky" software causing conflicts.

At this point, after all of the above, it seems plausible to me that there is some incompatibility between the Dock and cards based on the Silicon Image 3132 chipset. I spent a good deal of time on tech support with Sonnet (one of the esata cards, a well-regarded company), and the knowledgeable, helpful support representative came to the same conclusion: the JMicron card works fine, the Silicon Image based ones not...and that seems to point to an incompatibility issue, whether with their 3132-based cards, or the dock itself.

When I called Thermaltake tech support for guidance -- and I must say I'm not exaggerating here, the gentleman I spoke with was extremely rude -- and was actually defensive in saying it's, "Obviously a problem with the esata card," and insisted that there is no incompatibilities with their dock. By simply mentioning that it didn't work with two different makes of esata cards who use the 3132 chipset, and doesn't show both drives on a 1-slot esata card that supports port-multiplication, the gentleman (not so gently) barked back: "Well fine -- I can issue you an RMA, but it's not going to do any good! What's your email?!"
At the end of our conversation, he said a flat "thank you" and hung up the phone with some audible force.

I'm not saying Thermaltake doesn't make great products -- they do; I have their one-slot BlacX esata dock, and it has continually worked wonderfully for me. However, having tech support that rude, after I spent much time trying to get their product to work, spending more money, and missing out on my return time period in the process -- to have him act that rude left a bitter taste in my mouth. I didn't call yelling at him about their product -- I was simply looking to figure out the issue, and relayed my findings / dealings with the other company, to which he responded: "Those companies will say anything in order to make it 'not their fault'," which is quite ironic -- considering he was the only one doing that.

At this point I am stuck with this unit. I apparently can RMA it, but since the tech support rep made absolutely no effort in trying to resolve my situation, if I replace the unit, the incompatibility is likely to persist.
FYI: The tech support representatives name is Jeremy DeLong. Maybe he just wasn't having a good day, but I can't say that he hasn't affected my view of Thermaltake at least a little.

I feel disappointed with this purchase, and while incompatibilities do exist -- and are sometimes expected -- to not even receive cordial support from the company whom I purchased it from, and for him to scoff at the notion that an incompatibility may even exist...seems a bit much for a paying customer to have to deal with.

Based on my experience with this product, I can't give it more than one star -- though obviously many users may have different experiences.
3 esata cards later, however, this unit does not work as it is advertised...and the company touting it has not helped, either.
Take the above for what it's worth.

This is a great product. I bought it together with a WD Green 1.5 TB drive for $130 combined. Together, they are an excellent, silent storage solution.

I do recognize that other reviewers had an issue with the doubler not working if their eSATA port did not have a multiplier. Perhaps -- though I don't know -- Thermaltake was not clear about this issue in previous sale posts. This is now clear in the about section (it says "eSATA port requires Port Multiplier function"), so buyers should be aware before they purchase that they may be getting just single HD capacity IF they plan to use eSATA AND they don't definitively have a multiplier on their computer connector.

That said, however, the double was only $10 more than the single, so its worth the try even if you can't determine before hand what your port can do.

Also, this all has no effect on USB 2.0 connections, which are able to double up -- i.e., accept two SATA hard drives -- up to a total capacity of 4 TB (2 TB each).

It works seamlessly out of the box and is whisper quiet (at least with the WD Green). The manual could use some improvement; for example, it doesn't say that if you only have one drive, it needs to be in the first slot. But other than that -- totally awesome storage solution.

I got the BlacX Duet (model ST0014U) to back up my hard drives when my primary computer stopped booting. Connected via USB and have not had any problems whatsoever. Have been able to look at and copy data off two drives at once - very easy to use. Was even able to get data off a hard drive that the old computer says is completely corrupted. Not using this for permanent connection to the hard drives so I'm not sure about others issues but this one has been working perfect for what I need. I used this for 500 gig drives but the box for the duet says supports SATA hard drives up to 2TB.