4.0 out of 5 stars Good usb 3.0 4-bay dock but limited by 6.5 amp power supply

2026-01-22    -George N. Lawrence

The SDOCK4U33 is itself an excellent docking station. I have seen several questions about the use of the new Seagate 8TB drives. With the factory power supply providing 6.5 amps, I found I could run three at a time of the archive 8TB Seagates (ST8000AS0003) but not four at a time. Since these heavy drives draw 2 amps for spin-up I needed at least an 8 amp supply. Higher amperage 12 volt power supplies are readily available but usually the assignment of voltage to the 4-pin DIN connector does not match the Startech power supply.Startech support was helpful in discussion of the problem but did not have an answer to go above 6TB.Frustrated by this, I bought a 12.5 amp supply KFD 150W Power Supply 12V 12.5A For FSP150-AHA ECS Buddie UB 4m23 BUDDIE ECS D1S4-2 4Pin. The voltage assignments were wrong but I found that I just had to rotate the connector 90 degrees and smash down a little metal tab that goes into a slot. The metal tab is there to keep people from doing this very thing. Now I delivered enough current to keep four of the big Seagate 8TB drives running full tilt for days at a time. No over-heating or any other problems. Check your voltage assignments very carefully if you are going to do this.With the flat part of the connector on the bottom the two pins on the left should be +12 volts and the two on the right are 0/ground. This is sometimes written as 1+, 2-, 3+, 4- and some of the product pages show a small diagram of pin voltages as does the label on the 6.5 supply Startech provides.Now I have a pair of 16 TB shared storage drives for a total of 32TB running at the same time.The same trick should work for the Seagate 10TB drives as I have seen specs of 1.8 amps for spin-up. If I can find a spare couple of thousand dollars for a set of four 10TB drives, I will give them a try.

Quality product from a Top Brand

2025-12-29    -Hans

All my HDD Docking Stations are from StarTech, simply because they never fail and they never break!A quality product from a very good Brand with high Service for its Customers.They last for years, I only have to buy new ones when the Hard Disk Capacity outgrows the capacity of the Docking Station. The old Docking Station is then easily sold second hand.

Quality product from a Top Brand

2026-02-11    -Hans

All my HDD Docking Stations are from StarTech, simply because they never fail and they never break!A quality product from a very good Brand with high Service for its Customers.They last for years, I only have to buy new ones when the Hard Disk Capacity outgrows the capacity of the Docking Station. The old Docking Station is then easily sold second hand.

Excellent dual drive dock

2026-02-21    -James

This dual dock works as advertised, with super quick transfers. It doesn't look as "cheap" in person as the photos seem to show. It was one of the things that made me second guess purchasing it, but was pleasantly surprised once I did receive it. Quite solid, and doesn't transfer the vibrations of connected hard disk drives to the table as much as a previous single drive dock I had did. The power connector at the back seems a little bit flimsy, as at least one other reviewer mentioned, but I don't plan on moving this dock around much, so it shouldn't be an issue.

2.0 out of 5 stars This model does not have the built-in cloning feature of other StarTech docks

2026-01-06    -ExMoto

Works fine as a standalone dock but I realized too late that this model does not have the built-in cloning feature of other StarTech docks. My fault I guess but I was looking at the USB 3.1 speed ratings and thought this was one of their high-end models.

Works with Dual 14TB Drives. Could have had dual power button.

2026-01-30    -Jonathan Mark Fry

Tested and working with drive sizes up to two WD/HGST HC530 14TB hard drives. Solid unit. Kinda wish that the drive channels we're independent with power off so you could swap a single drive out when done it's operation. A bit of a limitation, not a deal killer.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good usb 3.0 4-bay dock but limited by 6.5 amp power supply

2025-12-26    -George N. Lawrence

The SDOCK4U33 is itself an excellent docking station. I have seen several questions about the use of the new Seagate 8TB drives. With the factory power supply providing 6.5 amps, I found I could run three at a time of the archive 8TB Seagates (ST8000AS0003) but not four at a time. Since these heavy drives draw 2 amps for spin-up I needed at least an 8 amp supply. Higher amperage 12 volt power supplies are readily available but usually the assignment of voltage to the 4-pin DIN connector does not match the Startech power supply.Startech support was helpful in discussion of the problem but did not have an answer to go above 6TB.Frustrated by this, I bought a 12.5 amp supply KFD 150W Power Supply 12V 12.5A For FSP150-AHA ECS Buddie UB 4m23 BUDDIE ECS D1S4-2 4Pin. The voltage assignments were wrong but I found that I just had to rotate the connector 90 degrees and smash down a little metal tab that goes into a slot. The metal tab is there to keep people from doing this very thing. Now I delivered enough current to keep four of the big Seagate 8TB drives running full tilt for days at a time. No over-heating or any other problems. Check your voltage assignments very carefully if you are going to do this.With the flat part of the connector on the bottom the two pins on the left should be +12 volts and the two on the right are 0/ground. This is sometimes written as 1+, 2-, 3+, 4- and some of the product pages show a small diagram of pin voltages as does the label on the 6.5 supply Startech provides.Now I have a pair of 16 TB shared storage drives for a total of 32TB running at the same time.The same trick should work for the Seagate 10TB drives as I have seen specs of 1.8 amps for spin-up. If I can find a spare couple of thousand dollars for a set of four 10TB drives, I will give them a try.

Excellent dual drive dock

2025-12-29    -James

This dual dock works as advertised, with super quick transfers. It doesn't look as "cheap" in person as the photos seem to show. It was one of the things that made me second guess purchasing it, but was pleasantly surprised once I did receive it. Quite solid, and doesn't transfer the vibrations of connected hard disk drives to the table as much as a previous single drive dock I had did. The power connector at the back seems a little bit flimsy, as at least one other reviewer mentioned, but I don't plan on moving this dock around much, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Sehr gut

2026-02-14    -Amazon Customer

Habe die jetzt gut 2 Wochen mit ne Asrock USB 3.1 card in Betrieb und keine Probleme mit. Geschwindigkeit ist zwischen 88 Mb/sek. bis 140 MB/sek., also ~ 100- 110 Mb/sek.! 1 TB wurde in ca. 2 Std. transferiert. Bin sehr zufrieden.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great product with solid performance

2026-01-24    -Rick_in_LA

This is our second StarTech product. They all work great. USB 3.1 and 3.0 connections are very stable. StarTech quality over the last 4 years has solidified our confidence in their solutions, so we plan to continue to purchase their stuff. Our other product from StarTech was their External Drive Enclosure for 2-HDD USB 3.0 which also perform very well.This unit replaced a similar inferior product by Thermaltake Duet HDD Docking Station which kept getting disconnected and causing file system errors.