SABRENT 4-Bay USB 3.0 Docking Station for 2.5” & 3.5” SATA HDD & SSD, Trayless Design, USB 3.0 5Gbps, Offline Clone Function (DS-U3B4)

This item was delivered on time and was not packaged in an Amazon box, which was surprising. Nonetheless, the Sabrent package is as sturdy and professional as I have come to expect from the brand. Short version: This docking station worked just as I expected. The 4 HDDs I inserted into it were recognized immediately by the OS (Windows 11 Home) exactly as they were when they were installed in the PC the docking station is now connected to. My only complaint is that the slots that the drives sit in are not suited for slim profile drives. I had to insert a small piece of cardboard into the slot along with the one slim profile HDD (first drive on the right in the photo) to help it stay upright. Other than that, I am satisfied and will continue to use Sabrent equipment for my PC and network needs. Long version: I have been building my own PCs for years with great success. The current iteration uses a Gigabyte motherboard mounted in an Antec gaming tower enclosure with three SATA drives installed in addition to two M.2 drives, one of which hosts the OS. When I decided that I needed more drive space and there were not enough power plugs on the existing power supply to accommodate an additional HDD, I decided that a docking station was the way to go. Since I have been using Sabrent networking accessories for years, it was the logical choice. I currently use a Sabrent USB hub attached to my TP-Link router to share 4 "My Passport" drives on my home network and it works well. When this docking station arrived, I removed the 3 HDDs from the PC, mounted them in the dock along with the fourth drive, and powered the system back up. The drives were recognized in the same configuration as they were when mounted in the PC. I did make sure the drives were mounted in the dock's slots (A, B, C, and D) in the same order as they were connected to the PC's SATA slots (0, 1, 2, and 3). I'm not sure that was necessary, but it seemed reasonable to me. Subsequently, the drive shares show up on the other PCs on the home network just as they were before the installation of the dock. That is exactly what I was expecting. As a bonus, my PC now seems to run cooler without having to contend with powering the HDDs and dealing with the heat they generate, which is now dissipated into the air. Highly recommended.

Would buy again - my initial thoughts. I just finished my first use of this product. I have about 18 old hard drives taken from computers going back 20 years or so. Oh, I also use Linux. That might figure in here. I plugged this into my Zorin computer and saw that the computer did not see the unit but this proved to be operator error. Upon putting a drive into the Sabrent my computer immediately recognized that drive. I tested all 4 bays and each worked great. If you have a stack of old drives and you want to check them out and transfer files between them this is a fantastic unit. So this is a definite would buy!

Update: 10-25-2023 I formatted my one of the drives in my new Sabrent Docking system and the speed more than doubled with the exact same file I used yesterday. Yesterday I was getting max 50MB/s on a 1.6TB File Today I am getting 164MB/s on the same 1.6TB File Transfer both NTSF. So, great improvement. Excellent Indeed. 10-24-2023 I got this because I have 4 OLD HDD's THAT I still want to use to back things up to. The reasons I picked this were 1. Low Cost 2. Has a Fan so no overheating, 3. Can fit both HDD 3.5 Inch and SDD 2.5 inch Hard Drives 4. It also has a cloning option built in. It was very simple to install. Literally just plug and play. My New PC recognized the Drives Straight Away. They simply act as a large volume flash drive for those wondering. I have a 2 TB, 8 TB, 4 TB and 6 TB My New computer uses the latest technology and was rather spendy so I didn't want to purchase any more hard drives just to fit inside the computer. So, for $88 plus tax it was a good deal. I am copying all of my documents, photos and personal videos about 1.6TB over from one of the HDD to another HDD in the Sabrent Dock and I am getting about 50 MB/s. Rather slow but I didn't format the old drive prior to the copy and I regret that now. I think I would have gotten better speeds had I reformatted prior to the copy. Overall I am very pleased with the Dock and Highly recommend it for anyone so long and you don't have a dog or say children that may accidentally knock it over. The drives themselves won't take much of a jostle but the dock although plastic works very well and as intended. CHEERS!

Sabrent 4-Bay USB 3.0 SATA 2.5"/3.5" SSD/HDD Docking Station (DS-U3B4) My original intent in purchasing this docking station was for the ability to create identical drives for BU purposes. This is a simple operation and I like that the switch to start cloning is in the front. The ability to make MULTIPLE clones (up to 3) was just a big plus. But be aware that if it takes one HHD to clone in an hour, to clone 3 HDD's will take an hour each (total 3 hours)... I have also used this docking station to run HHD's as additional storage for my computers. Very easy and both my Ubuntu and WinXP / Win7 / Win8.1 / Linux machines all see the drive as a normal USB drive and is addressed as such with very easy accessibility. This in itself gives you the great advantage to make your backups on any HHD you need to very easy to perform. It is as easy as making a clone of your HDD, actually, making the clone is easier after you remove the HDD from the computer and place it in the Docking station with the target HDD. Just push the button to start process. You can add up to 4 additional HDD drives to your computer with this docking station and being it is branded with the SABRENT name, its reliability holds to the company standard. Realize that all products have a failure rate, it's not a perfect world, but I have had crazy good performance from SABRENT products and very little failure rate that I do recommend SABRENT products. In the box comes the docking station, power supply and cable to connect to the computer. The LED indication for each drive bay is on the front of the docking station so you won't have the problem of seeing the LED like some of the other clone/docking stations have. The Clone button is also on the front panel, the power switch is on the rear panel. This is good or bad depending on how you look at it. Good if you want some assurance the Power button won't be pressed in error while a save or clone is in process. May be a little inconvenient if you have the habit to turn everything off every time you shut down the computer on a daily basis but it is not a deal breaker. I do not know this seller nor did I receive any merchandise or monies for my independent reviews. 181122 1113

I've been through 2 of these in 4 years, and both ultimately failed completely. The first was warranty replaced by Sabrent. When they did work, they were inconvenient and unreliable. The drives are not held in place well. They rattle against the hard plastic and will disconnect if jostled. The drives are not individually hot-swappable. To add, remove, or change any disk in the dock, you must unmount all disks, power down, swap drives, then turn on and remount all disks. It's a shame because Sabrent has a pretty good reputation, but my bad experience with 2 of these docks has me second-guessing future purchases. As a comparison, my Thermaltake USB-SATA docks are still going strong after well over a decade, though their USB2 connectivity and ancient chipsets make them less useful for large modern drives. My Pluggable USB3 dock (also nearly a decade old) was solid until recently, but started having connectivity dropouts during sustained transfers. Alas, they don't make 'em like they used to, I guess.

worked perfectly. 4 hard drives read on pc!

If you want to have the flexibility to add up to 4 drives to your computer without the hassle of opening up your computer and dealing with wiring it up, this is your baby. The beauty of this docking station is that you can physically insert and remove 3.5" drives and 2.5" SSD with ease. This lets you keep a stack of hard drives in your storage library at a much more cheaper cost by eliminating having to buy the enclosure for every storage unit. Just label them and organize to a file type (images, audio, documents, etc.) and keep a master list. When it comes time to getting them online, just remove drives you don't need access to and insert new one's into the docking station. This is JBOD but with transfer done over a USB 3.0 port. Its not enclosed which is great because you can hot swap with ease. Installation is fast. Just plug into a USB 3.0 port on your computer and the USB B into the Sabrent. Then, attach the power supply. Less than 5 minutes and it just works with no special drivers. You can use this as a mobile storage device to attach to a fixed computer or mobile laptop. Unfortunately, it is not a USB 3.1 Gen 2 connection. I really wish Sabrent would have created one because this would allow even faster data transfer. Still, this is USB 3.0 fast at up to 5Gbps. I like this solution over NAS storage as it requires very little setup and administration. The best $80 I've spent.

Let me start off by saying that I have owned many drive bays through the years and this is by far the worst one yet. I have another Sabrent drive bay which only uses 2.5" drives and that one works fine so either I have a defective one or this one is very poorly designed. I'm afraid that it is going to kill my 3.5" spinning drives if I keep on using it. The frustrating thing is that if I use only ONE hard drive in this bay it performs as it should, reading and writing with no issues. This bay is NOT HOT SWAPPABLE as advertised however. When I add a second drive while it's powered on it causes the first drive to disconnect prompting my Mac to show a "disk not ejected properly" error. After waiting a minute or so the first drive connects again and now I see my two drives. If I connect a third drive the first two disconnect and now I see a double error on the screen as if I had removed the drives without ejecting them first. After waiting another couple of minutes all three drives appear on my Mac again but I can never connect or disconnect one of the drives without causing the others to disconnect incorrectly. I'm sorry that I waited so long to use this bay since it's beyond the return window now.

Instant plug and play. Zero issues and hdd detected immediately by OS.

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One of the cheapest 4 bay docking station. Seems to be solidly built and is working perfectly.

PRO: - di facile installazione, con cavi usb e dell'alimentazione piuttosto lunghi - pulsante on/off presente - usb 3.0 presente - versatile, possibilità di collegare 4 hard disk da 2,5 o 3,5 in diverse combinazioni tra loro - possibilità di collegare e scollegare a caldo gli hard disk senza spegnere l'hub - nessun driver specifico richiesto per la configurazione - presenza di un tasto 'copia' che permette la clonazione tra hard disk - ottimo rapporto qualità prezzo considerati 4 bay disponibili CONTRO: - la clonazione tra hard disk non è configurabile da pc - non è presente alcun software specifico da installare su pc CONCLUSIONI: Da acquistare se si desidera una soluzione per l'installazione on the fly degli hard disk, considerata la buona qualità rispetto ad un prezzo sotto i 100€. Se si sta cercando qualcosa di più elaborato con un software specifico è necessario passare ad una soluzione tipo NAS

Great product works great. Packaging could have been Better no Amazon box just raw product box.