Hi, Does anyone have any experience with this type of setup?
NewerTech Voyager S2 “Dual Interface” USB 2.0/eSATA - SATA I/II Hard Drive Docking solution
http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers2.php
Currently I am working off of Lacie Quad drives connected to my mac pro via an e SATA cable. I devote one drive to a job (or specific client) and then clone that drive via Supper duper. The hard drives and cables are piling up here, seems kind of wasteful to have all of those cables and hard drive enclosures around. The only downside I can think of is that the bare eSATA drives are not designed to be swapped out that often (or are they) and the contacts may not take the wear & tear very well.
Would be nice to save the space, lower the cost of storage and cut down on the cable clutter a bit...
I'm using a Thermaltake dual bay docking station as well. It accepts 2.5" and 3.5" SATA I/II drives.
I don't think there is any fear the contacts will be an issue if carefully handled.
I do think there's a fear that the drive is open to the environment and spills, drops, etc, can be an issue where with an enclosure these same issues are minimized in proportion to the quality of the case.
I use my docking station for routine maintenance, and for off-site archiving. Currently I've converted a military grade hard case with high density foam (by converted I mean I cut out new foam) which can hold 24 3.5 inch drives. Each drive holds a years archives and is kept off site. The case is dust, pressure, humidity, and water proof.. and shock proof to a great degree.. you can drive a Humvee over it. Still, fire worries me.
Because of the fire issue I'm watching for a great sale of 2.5" drives.. at which time I'll buy a small highly rated fireproof safe, fill it with high density foam with the appropriate cutouts.. and that will be the best I can manage short of cloud storage which I find expensive for my requirements. Some years require a 20g drive, others a 200-300g drive. I depends.. but it's nice to know it's there. And since I use other means (RAID, NAS, redundant in case backup) for backup throughout the year.. really I'm only putting a new drive in the docking station one time to SMART test it, format it, copy the data to it, and verify it. So the connectors aren't a concern.
But to have it sit on a desktop full time like you would with an enclosure.. you're probably asking for an accident to happen.
But I totally agree.. a collection of external enclosures and their related cables and power supplies.. what a mess to manage. And if the enclosure of power supply fails.. you'll be removing the bare drive anyway hoping the enclosure used a standard format..