#Thermaltake blacx driver for mac portable
#Thermaltake blacx driver for mac windows 7
#Thermaltake blacx driver for mac mac

The plastic dock now has a revised power/activity button that lights up blue when there's power and access. Prosaically titled the BlacX Duet 5G, the £50 caddy enables USB 3.0-connected access to two drives at the same time.Īside from the obvious inclusion of a second bay there's not much changed here. Now, though, Thermaltake extends the usefulness of that dock by incorporating a model with a second drive-bay.

Thermaltake has an array of USB 3.0-armed caddies and perhaps the simplest to use is the open-top BlacX 5G, currently retailing for around £35.

Grab a caddy, throw in a mechanical or solid-state disc, and the innate throughput of the drive should be the bottleneck, not the interface. With a theoretical throughput of 5Gbps tempered by a real-world transfer speed of a still-excellent 400MB/s, USB 3.0's intrinsic bandwidth should enable external storage to function much like a SATA-connected drive. You treat the hardware good, and in most cases, it will last.Widespread motherboard adoption of USB 3.0 paves the way for a multitude of external docks and caddies touting the super-speedy interface. The unit has an eject button to 'pop' the drive out of the contacts, use it. However a good practice is to power off the unit, then insert or remove a drive. The same way you would attach any SATA cable to any HDD. Insert the drive slowly and then press down to make the connection. In most cases, how you treat your hardware can have a direct effect on it's operational lifespan.ĭon't 'drop' or 'thrust' drives into the station. Overall Review: All hardware fails at some point. This unit is a docking station, it should be sitting safely and securely on your desk or work area. Seriously? That applies to almost ALL computer hardware. 'Seems like it would break if I drop it'. The unit I received is quite heavy and robust, the material seems to be far from 'cheap'. This unit does not appear to be cheaply manufactured at all. Not sure why anyone would say 'Quality is a concern', 'Cheap plastic'. Allowing me to easily access HDD's for service and storage. Has flawlessly worked with every drive I have used in the unit so far and is serving its purpose.

#Thermaltake blacx driver for mac windows 7

Instantly recognized and operational under Windows 7 Ultimate 64. The rubber feet grip my desktop quite well. Seems to be built well, solid construction, and 'heavy'. I have no write errors anymore, no disconnects, and the super fast transfer speeds was well worth the trouble, since using eSATA was the main reason I purchased this product in the first place. Not having the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon made me uneasy but I was able to get around this and remove the drive safely before unplugging by going to Device Manager, right clicking on the drive, and selecting 'Uninstall'. Mine doesn't, so I'm using the standard SATA port. I did research on this also, and from what I understand, in order for hot swapping to truly work on eSATA, your mobo must have eSATA ports. The OS thinks I installed new hardware inside the case so it's not going to allow me to unplug it like a thumb drive. Overall Review: I didn't get the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon though. I plugged the eSATA cable in and voila, my OS recognized new hardware and installed it automatically! (continued in other thoughts) I had another mobo that had AHCI, and since my OS was loaded BEFORE I changed to AHCI mode, I had to reinstall the OS (I couldn't find a good way around it). That worked, but if I tried to access the drive for any length of time, it lost its connection and I got write errors all over the place. I went to Device Manager to detect new hardware. I still used it anyway, and of course the OS didn't recognize it automatically.

Firstly, your motherboard must be able to support hot swapping (AHCI), which mine doesn't. I assumed that eSATA worked the same way as USB in the sense that you plug it in, the OS recognizes it, and you're good to go. This was definitely a learning curve for me.

#Thermaltake blacx driver for mac portable

Docking station is very effective compared to an external enclosure if you never plan on moving it around like a portable drive.Ĭons: This isn't a con on the product, just didn't have enough space in other thoughts. If you can get eSATA to work correctly, you should definitely use that because it's noticeably faster than USB. Pros: Works well, solid device, very fast transfer speeds, both USB and eSATA. Supports USB 2.0 Transfer Speed up to 480MbpsĬompact Docking Station Design maximizes Heat Dissipation & ExhaustĪdditional Information Date First Available Hot-Swap Capability for Rapid Multi HDDs Access & Exchange

#Thermaltake blacx driver for mac mac

OS Compatible Windows Vista / XP / 2003 / 2000 / NT / 98 / 95 Mac 10.3 and laterĬompatibility Operating Systems Supported Learn more about the Thermaltake BlacX (N0028USU) Model Brand