Akasa DuoDock 2S USB3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station Review

1. Introduction2. Akasa USB3.0 two port ExpressCard3. The Akasa DuoDock 2S Docking Station4. Testing Methodology and Performance5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

There are a lot of people out there who would benefit greatly from purchasing an external hard drive as a form of storage for backing up their files and storing large media files.  But the benefits of owning a hard drive docking station are constrained to a much narrower segment of the market.

Today we have the Akasa DuoDock 2S hard drive docking station on our test bench which lets you hook up two hard drives to your machine via a USB3.0 interface.  Both hard drive slots support both 2.5″ and 3.5″ hard drives, making this product as flexible as possible.  We will also be taking a look at Akasa's USB3.0 two-port ExpressCard notebook adapter which lets users add USB3.0 functionality to their laptop without significant cost.

Features

• Simple connection for 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA and SSD drives
• Takes two hard drives simultaneously
• Super speed USB3.0 connection
• Backward compatible with USB 2.0
• Stylish blue LED illumination with on/off switch

Specification

• Dimensions: 120 x 140 x 73mm
• HDD Interface: SATA
• External Connection: USB3.0
• Max Data Transfer Rate: 5 Gb/s (USB3.0) and 480Mb/s (USB2.0)
• Power requirement: +12V DC
• Power adapter: 100 – 240V AC
• Plug & Play: Hot Swappable
• OS Support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Max OSX 10.3+

The Akasa USB3.0 two port ExpressCard is supplied in a clear plastic blister back which should provide a reasonable level of protection to the product.  It also features an attractively designed blue cardboard insert that is sure to make it stand out on the shelves.  The front of the packet is molded to the shape of the product, which gives you an idea of its size and shape. The rear of the packet details the units specification.

Purchasing a USB3.0 ExpressCard is the only feasible way of adding USB3.0 functionality to a laptop which doesn't support it natively.  The Akasa USB3.0 two port ExpressCard adopts the favoured ExpressCard 34mm form factor which will ensure the best possible compatibility with machines on the market. Make sure before you consider buying a USB3.0 ExpressCard that some manufacturers don't include an ExpressCard slot on their laptops.

Those who plan to keep this ExpressCard in their machine at all times should consider that it will protrude about 3cm from the side of your machine which can be a hinderance at times.  It is relatively slim, though, so will easily slip into a laptop bag pocket when not needed or when in transit.  We will be evaluating the performance of this ExpressCard in our tests later on in the review.

The DuoDock 2S is supplied in a substantial cardboard box that should provide a great level of protection for the unit in conjunction with the foam padding inside.  The box is decorated in a blue-green livery that looks attractive and makes the white text stand out well.  The front of the box details some of the basic features of the DuoDock and the remaining sides expand on these in more detail.

Inside the box we find all the accessories we would expect with a hard drive docking station.  These comprise of a power adapter, a USB3.0 cable and a user guide.  There isn't really anything else we could reasonably ask for except for a microfiber cloth for cleaning all that glossy plastic!

Akasa have chosen to finish the DuoDock 2S in a combination of matte and gloss plastic which gives a good compromise between aesthetics and practicality.  For the top of the unit is finished in matte silver plastic that looks great and will resist scratches and fingerprints.  The base of the unit, however, is finished in gloss-black plastic that will look good for a while but will readily pick up dust and scratches over time.

The top of the unit is home to both of the hard drive slots which feature spring-loaded flaps to prevent excessive dust build up inside.  They also provide support for 2.5″ hard drives, making sure they don't move around when inserted.  The unit's power button is located just in front of these drive bays which is much easier to access than the rear-mounted buttons that feature on many hard drive docking stations.  To the right of the drive bays we find the hard drive eject buttons.  Both the USB3.0 and DC-in connections are located on the back of the unit alongside a small button to deactivate the LED lighting that surrounds the base of the unit.

To test the DuoDock 2S we used the USB3.0 ExpressCard provided by Akasa in conjunction with a Clevo M860TU notebook computer.  We chose to use a Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB solid state drive in the dock to minimise any performance limitations.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64.

A strong set of results in this test, showing how USB3.0 is definitely worth the price premium over USB2.0.

We have been using HDTach for many years now and always find it is an invaluable benchmark to ascertain potential levels of performance. HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.

Again we see good scores in HDTach with an average read speed of 130.6 MB/s.  When connected via USB2.0 we only achieved an average read speed of 31.8, meaning USB3.0 performance is around 400% of USB2.0.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Another strong set of results from the Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB and the DuoDock 2S.  For those who plan to use a mechanical hard drive, the difference in performance between USB2.0 and USB3.0 won't be so pronounced.

For our real world tests we used a single 2.09GB .AVI file and a mixed file folder making up 7.62 GB altogether.  In the test we copied these to and from the RAID volume.  Our test system featured a Corsair F40 Solid State drive connected to one of our motherboard's SATA 6Gbps ports.

This test shows the real world performance of the dock which is very impressive, allowing the transfer of large amounts of data very quickly.

We have been impressed with the Akasa DuoDock 2S as it combines good build quality and attractive aesthetics with impressive performance.  The flexibility of having two hard drive bays is invaluable for those who need to access multiple drives at the same time – many competiting products are a single drive design.  And the choice of a USB3.0 interface lends itself very well to multiple drives, reducing the bandwidth limitations of other interfaces.

The USB3.0 two port ExpressCard that Akasa supplied us with for review worked flawlessly in our tests even though we question the demand for such a product.  Most users who require the extra bandwidth are likely to be running desktop systems or a powerful up-to-date notebook that will support USB3.0 anyway.

For most users the final decision will come down to the price of the unit.  The DuoDock 2S is available for around £35 at YOYOTech which should be within the budget constrains of most people.  We also feel that the £5 price premium that the DuoDock 2S demands over their single bay docking station is justified and we can't see why anyone would opt for the single bay version over this.

Pros:

• good build quality
• pricing is better than single bay units
• performance is high

Cons:

• Is there a demand for it?
  

KitGuru says: A flexible hard drive dock with impressive USB3.0 speeds.

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