OWC announced today the availability of the OWC Drive Dock, a new docking station that allows creative professionals and other users of large amounts of data to easily hot-swap, and quickly access, store and transfer information from bare SATA drives.
The OWC Drive Dock is compatible with both Mac and PC systems, and provides two drive bays that each can accommodate either 2.5” or 3.5” drives. The two drives can be accessed simultaneously for improved data access and transfer speed, ensuring convenient access to multiple drives.
Key features of the dock include:
- Two Thunderbolt 2 ports and one USB 3.0 Gen 1 port.
- A premium aluminum enclosure and quiet, fanless operation.
- An internal universal auto-switching power supply, no external power brick needed.
- A three year warranty for peace of mind. OWC knows the best warranty is one that never has to be used, but should the need occur, OWC is proud to provide a superior level of support and warranty coverage.
An Essential Workflow Solution
OWC Drive Dock provides a very quick way to access bare SATA drives. Users can hot swap drives, read multiple drives simultaneously, or boot from bare drives, all with the speed of the Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3.0 Gen 1 interfaces. For video and audio content creation professionals, Drive Dock delivers rapid read/write transfer speeds with Thunderbolt 2 of 522 MB/s and 477 MB/s and 427 MB/s and 347 MB/s via USB, making it an important tool in high-demand creative workflows.
The OWC Drive Dock’s unique design makes hot-swapping a breeze:
- Two drive bays accommodate either 2.5” or 3.5” drives and both drives can be accessed simultaneously.
- Each bay features its own independent power switch and an LED activity monitor.
- Dual Thunderbolt 2 ports deliver extreme-speed data transfers, and support daisy-chain expansion with up to five additional Thunderbolt devices.
- A USB 3.0 port is also provided for versatile compatibility.
“The OWC Drive Dock is another premier addition to a growing OWC portfolio of Thunderbolt interface products providing robust, cost effective, and essential workflow solutions,” said Jennifer Soulé, President of Other World Computing. “I think of photographers, videographers and recording professionals who are working under tight deadlines — these professionals need a dock that can handle drives being inserted and removed repeatedly, and provides nearly immediate access to the data on those drives. Our new Drive Dock is designed to stand up to that type of use, and help users quickly complete their projects.”
Availability
The OWC Drive Dock is available now for same-day shipping at https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other+World+Computing/TB2U3DKR2/. The Drive Dock includes a one meter Thunderbolt cable and a 0.6 meter USB 3.0 cable.
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I had my credit card out ready to buy one of these if it was similar to the Thunderbay units in offering low-level access to the docked drives (SMART data, firmware updates). As an IT pro, such a dock is exactly what I want and need.
Sadly, it looks like even when connected via TB this device acts more like a USB3 dock. It’s still a nice product (and the internal power brick is hugely appreciated for those of us sick of bricks and phantom power draw), but I can’t personally justify the cost as-is.
If you can ever work out the challenges to produce a hot-swappable TB dock that *does* offer low-level drive access, however, I’d buy it in a second.
Out of curiosity, which drive docks actually let you gain low level access? That would be a lifesaver for certain drives.