Vantec NexStar TX Dual Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Dock (NST-D428S3-BK)

Over the past decade, I've purchased more than a dozen hard drive docks from various manufacturers, in sizes from one to four slots. The Vantec NexStar units are the only ones that consistently perform reliably. Docks from other vendors drop ready from time to time, and my four-slot StarTech docks don't provide enough power to start all four drives simultaneously; they HAVE to be started one at a time. I also like the NexStar design. The power bricks are heavy enough to provide power for starting both drives at once without a problem. Also, my docks are on the top shelf of a shelving unit full of computer equipment, so the front-mounted power button and indicator lights work much better than other vendors' rear-mounted switches and top-mounted lights. As for speed, it takes 2-3 hours to copy about 2TB of data using USB 3.0 and 3.1 Gen II. These copies took 10-20 hours on USB 2.0. And running multiple copies at once doesn't slow things down on USB 3 like it did on USB 2. I'm currently using four of the two-slot Vantec docks.

This is the second NexStar dock that I have owned and I bought it based on my experience with the single bay Vantec NexStar USB 2.0 eSATA Dock NST-D100SU White dock which I bought back in 2012.The single bay unit with a 1TB WD Black Caviar hard drive has been connected to my desktop computer via eSATA as a backup drive for four years now and has performed flawlessly over that time.The new dual bay dock is being used with two 2TB WD Black hard drives, one as main storage and the second as a backup drive. This dock is currently connected to my laptop via USB3. All three hard drives are available from both computers via my wired network.One difference that I have noticed between the eSATA and USB3 connections is the tendency for the units connected via USB3 to go to sleep when not being used, whereas the unit connected via eSATA on the desktop is always instantly available. This problem probably has more to do with the USB settings on the laptop rather than a problem with the dock itself and is something I will investigate further.At this stage I haven't tried the new unit via the eSATA connection but I wouldn't expect it to perform any differently to the single bay unit.Apart from the (minor) problem with the USB3 connection both units have performed flawlessly and I would have no hesitation in recommending either dock.

Used this baby with Acronis True Image. Was able to donate a stockpile of old laptops by backing up their images and wiping them with the disk cleanup app. Great machine. Very useful when you need it. But once you're done with it, as a regular computer user, unless you worked in the Geek Squad maybe at Best Buy or at a computer repair shop, the use plummets after the initial need. The saving grace is that it was reasonably priced. And I'm sure I'll use it again. Which I actually did later on after the initial use, so who know?

I was buying a dual bay hard drive dock to copy data from one drive to another, but this dock I can't figure out how to make the dual bay work at same time (this product comes with no any documentation!)1) only the 1st bay (in front) works with eSATA or USB3.0; 2nd (in the back) works only with USB3.0;or say: 2nd bay connected with eSATA doesn't work;2) I can't figure out how to make the both bay work; I insert two drives, connect both eSATA and USB, but seemsUSB takes priority, if I connect eSATA first, then connect USB, the new drive under USB is found but eSATAdrive disappear:Whenever USB is connected, the eSATA won't work;Whenever 1st bay has drive, the other drive in 2nd bay won't be detected;Performance data: Seagate 1TB SATA drive, recognized under Linux, write 10GB of zero byte, with eSATA it archives hard drive limit 100MB/s, with USB it's only 30MB/s, maybe my laptop usb socket is not 3.0;scsi 12:0:0:0: Direct-Access ST910006 40NS CC01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5sd 12:0:0:0: [sdf] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)$ time dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdf bs=4k count=$[256*10000] seek=$RANDOM2560000+0 records in2560000+0 records out10485760000 bytes (9.8 GiB) copied, 366.033 s, 27 MiB/sreal 6m6.036suser 0m0.604ssys 0m11.790s$ iostat -x 1avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle2.30 0.51 2.04 48.47 0.00 46.68Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rkB/s wkB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await r_await w_await svctm %utilsda 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00sdf 0.00 6496.00 0.00 228.00 0.00 27360.00 240.00 143.22 642.68 0.00 642.68 4.39 100.10Update: Under USB mode, not detecting 2nd bay may be because of this:A:Some distributions (notably Red Hat) turn off the kernel option CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN [...]You may check by this:$ cat /sys/module/scsi_mod/parameters/max_luns1If it's one, you can write it with 2 or a larger value; then unplug usb cable and replug,# echo 2 > /sys/module/scsi_mod/parameters/max_lunsor use scsi_mod.max_luns=2 kernel boot parameter;[308138.709650] scsi 45:0:0:0: Direct-Access ST910006 40NS CC01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5[308138.712780] scsi 45:0:0:1: Direct-Access WDC WD16 00AAJS-00YZCA0 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5[308138.713146] sd 45:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)[308138.716140] sd 45:0:0:1: [sdc] 312581808 512-byte logical blocks: (160 GB/149 GiB)as the <scsi_host:channel:id:lun> number shown above, under scsi_host45 as a two LUN device, without unplug/replug cable, you may also manually claim the 2nd LUN:# readlink -f /sys/class/scsi_host/host45# echo '- - 1' > /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.1/2-1.1:1.0/host45/scsi_host/host45/scanSCSI has standard REPORT_LUN command but the dock is unable to report lun by itself, driver has to assume 2 lun or more. (the Windows usb-storage driver and some Linux distro assumes default 15 could recognize all drives as multiple lun scsi device) (This should be the product firmware REPORT_LUN defect)