| If you’ve got a lot of hard disks drives that you | | | | “slot” or “dock” the hard drive into |
| use on a regular basis or perhaps you’re an IT or | | | | the “docking station”. They also have their |
| Support Engineer and your job involves testing hard | | | | own power supply, which in turn powers the hard |
| drives then you might want to consider a Hard Drive | | | | drive. |
| Docking station rather than a hard drive enclosure. | | | | Once installed in the docking station the hard drive will |
| Whilst Hard Drive Enclosures are excellent at | | | | be picked up by the PC and within a couple of |
| providing protection for the hard drive and | | | | seconds you can be interrogating the hard drive, |
| they’re available in a range of interface types, | | | | retrieving data or backing up data to the drive. When |
| styles and colours they still typically need a few | | | | you’ve finished simply remove the hard drive |
| minutes to set up. This is because there are normally | | | | from the docking station. There are no screws, no |
| a few screws that hold the case together and a | | | | connections to mess with you just pop it in and take |
| couple of screws that are used to hold the hard | | | | it out. It that simple that you can do it all one handed! |
| drive in place in the enclosure. You want these if you | | | | The Docking Stations support hard drives from |
| are building a permanent or semi-permanent back-up | | | | laptops (2.5” HDD’s) and from Towers |
| or external storage solution. You want to be | | | | Desktops (3.5” HDD’s) so not only are they |
| comforted by know your hard drive is safe in the | | | | easy and quick to use but they’re incredibly |
| enclosure, particularly if you’re carrying it around | | | | flexible as well. |
| with you. | | | | |
| But, if you need to check lots of disks on a regular | | | | If you’re worried about losing one of your USB |
| basis and your time is valuable then an alternative is a | | | | Ports by having the docking station permanently |
| Hard Drive Docking Station. These relatively new | | | | connected then don’t because many version of |
| products are typically permanently connected to your | | | | these have a USB Hub built into the base of the unit |
| PC or Mac via USB and you then simply | | | | to give you 3 extra USB ports as well. |