hard drive docks vs hard drive enclosures

[Sossity]

I have seen a few hard drive docks where bare hard drives can be placed in them, and swapped out. Many have good reviews.

Something like this would be nice, I would use for overnight backups etc. My only concern is the bare drives are out in the open and not protected by an enclosure, and my environment is not exactly very protective of bare hard drives either.

what is anybody else s preference?

I am looking for a tooless dock or enclosure with different connector options; firewire, usb, esata or thunderbolt. One where I can just swap hard drives in and out without having to use tiny little screws that get lost etc.

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Oops sorry folks, I goggled this, and found I asked something similar a while back, so if mods want to delete this ok. Apologies for a repeat topic.

 

[nbourbaki]

I use my docks for swapping out hard drives as needed. I use enclosures for archive volumes. I haven't had anything happen to one of my drives in a dock. If I had small children, I would have to rethink that.

Docked drives (7200rpm) stay cool and are noisier. All of my enclosures and docks are on shelves. Either way, get a dock/enclosure with both eSATA and USB 3.0. It gives you a lot more flexibility.

 

[hfg]

There are some docks which accept the disk drive horizontally rather than the "toaster type" which have the drive exposed and sticking up in the air. These seem to be better for mechanical security while still maintaining the easy load/unload dock function.

http://plugable.com/products/usb3-sata-uasp1

 

[dyt1983]

Keep in mind that most SATA connectors were designed for an insertion cycle rating of around 50. You'll obviously get more than that before failure (because I've seen many that have broken off before that and skewed it down), but it just wasn't designed for repeated daily use connections.

 

[thedeske]

Keep in mind that most SATA connectors were designed for an insertion cycle rating of around 50. You'll obviously get more than that before failure (because I've seen many that have broken off before that and skewed it down), but it just wasn't designed for repeated daily use connections.

I have a few 2.5 drives that are approaching 1000 plugs each in my dock. I'm careful to plug them in softly. I also tend to keep them in a backpack
and don't take a special care, other than not dropping them. Perhaps I'm lucky?

 

[dyt1983]

I have a few 2.5 drives that are approaching 1000 plugs each in my dock. I'm careful to plug them in softly. I also tend to keep them in a backpack
and don't take a special care, other than not dropping them. Perhaps I'm lucky?

I've seen many with broken connectors, so maybe those average it out.