Thermaltake is a brand name that everyone knows with wide ranges of products from cases to peripherals, all the way to their signature high end power supplies and coolers. Enthusiasts and consumers alike know the name. We shall focus on one of Thermaltake’s brand new HDD docking stations. No, it’s not for your white acrylic flashy expensive iPod from Mac, but an interesting docking station first of its kind for hard drives! It’s a docking internal hard drive unit! It is a very ingenious concept, a step beyond innovation.

Introducing the BLACX

Hard drive not included

The main features of the device is showed on the front of the box

• For Windows and Mac
• Tool less design
• Sata drive to USB
• 3 Year Warranty

Packing contents
Designed in California
Made in China

Looks like the fellows from the Thermaltake headquarters in USA are responsible for the creation of this product

Specs
Hot swappable!
A patented design HDD ejection mechanism? Like a toaster?

Once I open the box, taking the unit out of the box, traditional bubble wrap is all around, accessories hidden behind the white cardboard inside.

No driver CD is provided. Only the modern operating systems will be compatible with this product from win 2000 to vista or OSX 10.0 to Leopard.

The unit’s weight is perfect around 2-3lbs while giving the feel of the product is surprisingly solid.

The only noise from the unit is from the hard drive. There are no fans, and this product is intended for passive use.

The unit casing is mostly matted painted ABS plastic with a decent attempt to make it look modern with the current pc trend of the color black and sleek designs. Although it looks modern it still has a plastic feel. Though I do understand plastic costs less than an aluminum housing, which saves tremendous costs passed on to the consumers for a better value and offering compared to other manufacturers. Although inexpensive material is used, do not underestimate the type of plastic this is. ABS is shatter resistant and provides good protection towards drops. If you’re really intrigued by what ABS is you can read the overly complicated article on Wikipedia.

There is one noticeable feature I do not like on the product; the protective flap Thermaltake provides does not cover the pin portion of the product. Although I understand Thermaltake purposely exposed the portion for easy installation of laptop hard drives, if the product stands upright with no hard drive installed it is very easy for the dust to settle in overnight.

After thought was put into why the area was left exposed, I realized at least 80% of people who purchase this product will just simply plug a hard drive into it and leave it as a stylish external hard drive dock. Although it supports hot swapping hard drives, I realize the majority of people will not use it as an ideal hot swap bay.

Also, the ejection button can be accidentally pushed while the unit is in operation/load. The ejected hard drive can potentially become damaged if ejected while the platter is still in motion.

Many people may think of this product as an enclosure, let me remind my readers that this is not an enclosure due to the fact that the product does not protect the hard drive and the actual unit itself is not for mobile use. It is a stationary internal hard drive docking station.

How to use the product, you may ask? I am going to make it easy!

Plug unit to power.

Plug the provided cable into the unit’s USB B to the computer’s USB A slot. (thank god for non proprietary usb cable just in case you lose it!)

Plug SATA hard drive of choice.

Push button on.

Done.

Or you can just read the manual.

Let’s dissect this to see how well the internals are made.

Removing 2 screws is easy to take half of the casing off

The majority of the weight of the unit is actually coming from a slab of steel, ingenious to keep the unit to stay in place.

A shot of the ejection mechanism

Front and back of the main PCB board

As you can see, it is very clean and very well soldered.

The main chip that does most of the hard work

Rubycon Main capacitor

According to Rubycon, this Cap is rated for 105c max temperature operation. I’m surprised Thermaltake used high quality capacitors for this product.

ChengX Secondary capacitors

Comments/Suggestions

I have to admit, I like this product. It is simple to use, has modern looks, is easy to install, and very affordable from most vendors and retailers from $25 to $35. It’s not very complicated when installing a drive, and plug and play just makes this a breeze, a Tool-less design for a docking unit at its best.

What we liked…

• Shatter resistant material
• Non proprietary USB cable for easy extension or replacement
• High quality capacitors rated for high temperature use
• No sloppy job with the solder
• Fan less
• Very easy to install for beginners, making it a bargain for its simplicity and value
• Easy to switch between hard drives during operation if properly done

What we didn’t like…

• SATA pin contact exposure when no drive is installed
• Hard drive can be damaged when ejected while still in operation
• Not made for mobile use
• No cover or protection over the hard drive

My thanks are going to the folks at Thermaltake for supplying the product for this review.