REVIEW – With so much data to access and store, connectivity options and the option to access additional drives add good functionality to my workflow. I think that this Alxum USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Clone will also be of great use when I need to replace my hard drives with larger ones.
What is it?
The Alxum USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Clone supports 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDD SSD SATA III/II/I up to 2x 12TB, as well as UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol). It features 2 hard drive bays and is Plug and Play. The body is constructed from plastic and Aluminum.
What’s in the box
1 x USB 3.0 to SATA Aluminum Hard Drive Dock
1 x 3.9ft Data Cable
1 x 12V 3A Power Adaptor
1 x User Manual
Design and features
Features
- USB 3.0 Dual Bay Hard Drive Docking station for 2.5”/ 3.5” SATA I/II/III HDD/SSD, Support 2 x 12TB Drives, UASP with Offline Clone, faster speed transfer data.
- Prevent damage to Cards caused by Current Overload and Provide a Stable and Secure current for External Hard Drive, Entering sleep mode without operation in 30 minutes.
- Easy install, no driver needed, hard drive offline clone skill, clone external hard drive A to B without computer.（Hard drive A must larger than Hard Drive B)
- Aluminum stylish design and solid exterior perfectly matching Apple MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Cinema Display; Highly efficient 12V3A power supply stable and reliable energy supply.
Clone Hard Drive Docking Station Feature:
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- Hard Disk connected to PC, write and read of up to 405 MB/s.
- Offline Clone without PC, write and read of up to 485 MB/s.
- The LED light indicates Power and Activity status.
- Enters sleep mode without operation in 30 minutes.
- Support Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 (32 / 64 bit), Mac OS 10.10 or higher, Linux;
Looking at the dock from the top, there are 2 drive bays with spring doors that allow you to connect either a 2.5-inch or a 3.5-inch drive in each bay. In front of the bays are the status indicator lights.
On the front of the dock, there is the Clone function button.
On the back of the dock, there is the USB 3.0 connectivity port, the power port and the on/off button.
Performance
This dock is Plug and Play right out of the box. The first test I performed was the offline cloning test. I installed the drive as shown below in bay “A” and verified that it was visible and available in my Windows File Manager.
I then unplugged the USB cable into the dock and into my laptop and inserted a blank unformatted SSD drive into bay “B”. The target drive must be of equal or larger size than the source drive. I then followed the process of pressing the cloning function button at the front of the dock. The photos and video below show the 2 drives inserted in the dock, the LED status indicator lights at the start of the cloning process, and the status lights in 25% increments throughout the completed cloning process. (The video is a sample and not representing the actual time the process takes).
https://youtu.be/ZRQzNfIFfyY
Below are the screenshots are of my Windows File Manager showing the 2 drives now visible and useable. Note that the contents of each drive are identical.
What I like
- The build quality
- The ease of connectivity and use
- The Plug and Play capability
- The offline cloning function
What I’d change
- Nothing that I can think of. It does what it is designed to do.
Final thoughts
The Alxum USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station Offline Clone is very convenient and very easy to use. The fact that it clones everything including creating the drive partition and mirroring the format type is great. Very often I want to swap out a computer hard drive for a larger size and it is usually a laborious process. This dock does the function with ease, and when not being used for cloning, it serves as a regular hard drive dock and that adds the functionality and accessibility of up to two additional drives. Well done and two thumbs up!!
Price: $27.99
Where to buy: Alxum website, Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Alxum
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FYI: There’s a typo in the features section:
Easy install, no driver needed, hard drive offline clone skill, clone external hard drive A to B without computer.（Hard drive A must larger than Hard Drive B)
As stated later, and on the label, *B* must be larger than A.
Also, grammar: “must *be* larger than”.
Thank you for catching those errors. Human errors.
Will have them corrected.