Sandberg SATA Docking Station

Surprisingly often, we’ve found ourselves wanting to access an old hard disk. If your PC breaks down with the hard disk intact, you may want to get data from it by connecting it to another computer, for instance.

In those circumstances, if you have access to a desktop computer you can open the case, attach the old disk and connect it up. But if you don’t want to open your computer, you have a laptop or there are no free hard disk bays, you’re stuck.

That’s where the Sandberg SATA Docking Station comes in – it's a cradle for serial ATA hard disks, either the 3.5in ones found in desktop computers or the 2.5in ones from laptops. It connects to the computer using USB or the newer eSata connection.

It even includes an eSata connector card that you can install on the other computer to give you access to the faster transfers that eSata enables.

Performance was good: Windows recognised our test hard disk as soon as we plugged it in, and transfer speeds were fine over USB but better over eSata.

For this kind of convenience the SATA Docking Station is worth the price.