At the 2008 CES back in January this year, Thermaltake debuted their BlacX HDD Dock, which we reviewed following its release a month later. This was such a unique product that our own Shawn Knight was quoted as saying, "The idea behind this product is so simple and yet, so ingenious that I am shocked nobody else has thought of it yet." At the time we noted that Thermaltake had patented the BlacX design, and you might expect a company with a patent like that to guard it closely, effectively cornering the market on this product.


But instead, in the months since, we have seen a proliferation of hot-swap hard drive docks come to market that all bear such a striking resemblance to the original BlacX that we can only come to the conclusion that Thermaltake is licensing the design. Such is the case with the product we have for review today, the Sunbeamtech HDD Docking Station. Like the original design, the Docking Station supports 2.5" and 3.5" SATA hard drives up to 1Tb in size in an easy-to-use hot-swap base connected to the computer via USB. While the original BlacX did not support eSATA, that has since become an added feature and one the Sunbeamtech Docking Station also offers.

Join us as we take a closer look at the Sunbeamtech HDD Docking Station.