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Looking for Mac HDD Dock Recommendations

R

Ross111

macrumors regular
Original poster
Can anyone recommend a HDD/SSD Drive dock that can handle two disks to replace my malfunctioning newer tech drive dock?

Primary use is for backups to HDDs that get swapped out regularly - I already have a Thunderbay 4 for daily storage needs.

Currently on a 2019 5k iMac, and will upgrade at some point.

What's needed:
- Handles (2) SATA 2.5"/3.5" HDDs/SSDs
- Needs to be compatible with SMART reporting (I believe this means it needs to be Thunderbolt)
- Works well with MacOS Sequoia and above
- Take no more than 30 seconds to swap out drives (no tools)
- Wakes from sleep correctly
- Nice-to-have, not required: Thunderbolt pass-through
- Nice-to-have, not required: quiet active cooling and/or noise management

The only one I've looked at closely thus far is the OWC Thunderbolt Drive Dock (Thunderbolt 4), and am looking for an alternative. Spending less would be preferred, but not required.

Edit: Looks like the non-NVMe OWC Thunderbolt Drive Dock may be Thunderbolt 3 and also work.

Many thanks!
 
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I tried a quick search on amazon for "3.5" SATA thunderbolt docking station" and came up with... nothing.

I'm going to take a GUESS that if you want a dual-bay 3.5"/2.5" docking station, it's going to be USB3.

If you think about it, if you're going to be using platter-based HDDs in this, what benefit does thunderbolt offer (speed-wise) over USBc ? Both are faster than the drives.

Is this what you're looking for?
www.amazon.com

Amazon

Amazon
www.amazon.com
 
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Fishrrman said:
I tried a quick search on amazon for "3.5" SATA thunderbolt docking station" and came up with... nothing.

I'm going to take a GUESS that if you want a dual-bay 3.5"/2.5" docking station, it's going to be USB3.

If you think about it, if you're going to be using platter-based HDDs in this, what benefit does thunderbolt offer (speed-wise) over USBc ? Both are faster than the drives.

Is this what you're looking for?
www.amazon.com

Amazon

Amazon
www.amazon.com
Click to expand...
Thanks for trying to help. My understanding is that macs can no longer check the SMART status for drives that are USB attached (unless you add some kernel extensions, which I'm not into), whereas if the interface is thunderbolt, then 3rd party apps can monitor the drive status.

For the most part, I don't have a practical need for thunderbolt otherwise (you can plug in SSDs of various forms into the docks), but have had some issues recently with my primary backup HDD and think it is likely the dock, but without being able to check for SMART errors, hard to know. And backups are one place I want to make sure I'm not having errors or failures predicted.

Perhaps only OWC is offering this currently, though I do need to confirm both of the above are truly using thunderbolt and not USB.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Bigwaff said:
Unfortunately, not TB.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it is a bit difficult to interpret, given they say "Drive Dock is flexible enough to use on almost any system and is compatible with Thunderbolt 3 ports." I think that is their way of saying USB works through a thunderbolt 3 port, but will call tomorrow to verify this and to also verify the other dock is actually thunderbolt.
 
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Avery1 said:
Yeah, it is a bit difficult to interpret, given they say "Drive Dock is flexible enough to use on almost any system and is compatible with Thunderbolt 3 ports." I think that is their way of saying USB works through a thunderbolt 3 port, but will call tomorrow to verify this and to also verify the other dock is actually thunderbolt.
Click to expand...
No need to call. "Thunderbolt 3 port" is USB-C shaped. Thunderbolt is a data protocol. USB 3.x and USB 4 are data protocols. USB-C (your "Thunderbolt 3 port") is a physical connection standard. Just because a device has a USB-C port does not mean it supports Thunderbolt. In this case, the Drive Dock is a USB 3.x data protocol device using a USB-C physical connection. Admittedly it is confusing and vendor misleading marketing doesn't help.
 
I use this one, has been very reliable, not particularly cheap at $76 Australian, but it works.

ORICO - USB Storage Adapters, Chargers, Hubs, and More

ORICO - USB Storage Adapters, Chargers, Hubs, and More
orico.cc

Screenshot 2026-02-23 at 11.07.05.jpg
 
ibarnett said:
Sort of with Disk Utility, but I can see more with with DriveDX.
Click to expand...
Curious - have you modified the kernel with any extensions, or are you just using DriveDX out of the box without their additional self-signed code that allows you to view SMART over USB?
 
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