StarTech USB to SATA Standalone Hard Drive Duplicator Dock
model# SATDOCK22R
Impressions: Plastic construction seems to be ok - relatively solid and utilitarian design. Works just like a regular USB hard drive dock in JBOD mode. In duplicator mode, one of the slots becomes the SOURCE and the other is designated as the destination. Holding down the mode switch button changes it from the blue USB JBOD mode to the red duplicator mode. Press start, and it begins to image the source drive onto the destination drive. A progress LED meter is on the unit to show its’ progress. The destination drive must have the same or larger capacity. So in my tests, it was from an 80 gb Hitachi Deskstar HDS728080PLA380 (7200 rpm) drive to a 500 gb Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm drive. On completion, the OS on the destination drive will only see 80 gb, so you’ll need to use a repartition software like Partition Magic or the linux based tools like a GPARTED livecd. Windows vista or windows 7 users can use the built-in tools in the Disk Manager section of the administrator tools.
Speedwise
From the above two drives, 80gb –> 500 gb , it took around 30 mins. I was staring at it as it was about to finish and it suddenly loudly beeped to announce that it was done… scared the bejeezus out of me.