Orico Transparent Dual-Bay Docking Station Review

Orico recently released a whole series of transparent devices and today it is time to take a look at another one of them: The dual-bay USB 3.0 docking station with the model number 6239U3.

Orico Dual-Bay Docking Station

The new transparent dual-bay docking station from Orico is available in two versions. That means that you’ll also have to pay double attention to which model you’re getting. There is the basic version which I’m testing today as well as one with built-in offline cloning function. Aside from the cloning function, the two are identical.

Whether you want to connect the latest large capacity HDDs with 16TB capacity, speedy SSDs, or a combination of the two – that’s up to you. The Orico docking stations will take them all and connect them to your system with 5Gbps USB 3.0 speeds. While 5Gbps isn’t the latest of fastest USB speed, it should be plenty in most situations. It will take SSDs to bottleneck and the docking station is more likely to be used with HDDs. It also supports UASP which is important for proper throughput.

Transparent and Open Design

The transparent design is most likely what will attract customers to this device. At least if that’s what you like. The transparent enclosure allows you to see all the internal parts which have a second effect. With nothing hidden, a company can’t get away with utilising inferior parts as they could with everything hidden. Now, please don’t get me wrong here. I don’t mean to imply that Orico would do that if it wasn’t visible.

We can easily see that Orico used solid-capacitors everywhere. Generally speaking, everything is built well on the inside and well worth showing off. Quality components and proper soldering points should guarantee a long-lasting device.

There is a second thing that sets this docking station apart from most other similar devices. There are no covers over the drive slots. While that does allow for more dust and dirt to enter the drive trays, it also allows the installed drives to breath better. That can be particularly important with mechanical HDDs which do run hot in such a non-cooled enclosure.

Power Supply and Sleep Mode

The docking station is also green. No, not in the colour sense, more in the environmental sense. After 10 minutes of inactivity, it will enter a sleep state for a greener operation and to increase the lifespan of the installed drives. If that doesn’t suit you, you can download an official firmware to change the sleep timer or switch it completely off.

Speaking of power, the included power supply delivers 12V and 3A which is plenty for the device and any installed drive; even during peak operations.