Notebookcheck Logo

OWC announces USB Type-C Drive Dock docking station

OWC announces USB Type-C Drive Dock docking station
OWC announces USB Type-C Drive Dock docking station
The external docking station supports read and writes rates of over 400 MB/s and is now available for just under $90 USD.

The external OWC Drive Dock allows users to hot-swap up to two internal drives of either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch sizes on their Macs or PCs through USB Type-C. It is essentially a cut-down version of the existing Drive Dock with Thunderbolt 2 for a much cheaper price as the Thunderbolt 2 model currently retails for $250 USD. The Type-C Drive Dock, on the other hand, retails for just $90 USD.

The aluminum dock requires no fans to operate, but it will still need an external AC adapter as the USB Type-C Gen. 1 port cannot provide enough power to run two drives simultaneously. The manufacturer is promising read and write speeds of up to 434 MB/s and 406 MB/s, respectively, which is more than enough for mechanical drives and is just below the limit of most SATA III SSDs where 450 MB/s to 500 MB/s transfer rates are more common.

Unfortunately, the Drive Dock includes no other features as it is strictly an external docking station. Thus, it adds no video-out ports or additional USB ports for charging or data transfer. We would like to see a Thunderbolt 3 version in the future as the additional bandwidth would allow for a more versatile dock.

Source(s)

+ Show Press Release
static version load dynamic
Loading Comments
Comment on this article
Please share our article, every link counts!
Allen Ngo, 2016-09-26 (Update: 2016-09-26)