Akasa DuoDock 2S USB 3.0 Docking Station

There are a lot of extras or peripherals for computers and one of the quickest growing categories of such are additional storage devices which can be added to a computer for purposes of backup or just to increase the storage capabilities of the computer system. It is not quite at the stage where every computer user will have additional hard drive docks but I’m sure you are aware that the percentage of people who have USB flash drives (USB memory sticks) is increasing very quickly within the UK and other highly-developed countries. In fact, I’d go as far to say that nearly every student at Universities across the country will have a USB memory stick, whether they use it or not is a different matter.

Hard drive docks are not a new thing but they have always been severely limited by the transfer rates between the drive and the computer itself and as such it makes it very hard to do any form of backup within a sensible timeframe. While it is not essential to back-up every file on your computer regularly it is pretty important to keep a ever-increasing amount backed up. For me, it is essential to have all of my ‘My Documents’ backed-up and I have always aimed to do this on a weekly basis. However in recent months this collection of files has grown to well in excess of 20 GB which may or may not sound a lot but this size is not that uncommon between regular computer users, especially those of us who play a ‘few’ computer games and do have quite a wide taste in music.

Akasa are mostly known for their computer cooling systems especially in the CPU cooling area. However, you may be surprised to know that they do also make cases, card readers, external enclosures, hubs and power supplies.

This review is of course a docking station which features the latest USB 3.0 interface which does in theory allow up to 5 gigabit per second speeds which should work out about 10 times faster than USB 2.0 . This does certainly sound like a nice improvement, we will see in this review if these speeds can be expected as well as the normal reviewing criteria.

Specifications
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[TABLE=class: grid][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4][COLOR=#555555][FONT=Tahoma]Application[/TD][TD]Docking station for notebook and desktop drives[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Designed for[/TD][TD]2.5” and 3.5” SATA hard drives[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Interface[/TD][TD]USB 3.0[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Data transfer rate[/TD][TD]5 Gbps (max)[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Power input[/TD][TD]12V DC (from 100-240V AC power adapter)[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Blue LED light[/TD][TD]Power, data transfer Disk 1 & 2, base[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Supported OS[/TD][TD]PC Windows XP, Vista and 7
Mac OS X 10.3 and higher[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Plug & Play[/TD][TD]Yes[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Hot Swappable[/TD][TD]Yes[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Dimensions[/TD][TD]120 x 140 x 73mm[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=bgcolor: #F0F2F4]Product code[/TD][TD]AK-DK02[/TD][/TR][/TABLE] [/FONT][/COLOR]