Plugable USB 3.1 Gen 2 SATA Vertical Hard Drive Dock

How To: Set up a New Hard Drive or SSD in Your Plugable Dock
How To: Recover Existing Hard Drive or SSD Data in Your Plugable Dock

Product Description

The USBC-SATA-V is Plugable’s first SATA hard drive dock to introduce USB-C connectivity and SuperSpeed+ USB 3.1 Gen 2 performance up to 10Gbps (1,250MB/s).

Thanks to USB 3.1 Gen 2 performance, we are now able to break USB 3.0 5Gbps (625MB/s) speed limitations and fully utilize SATA III 6Gbps (750MB/s) of available bandwidth. Transfer speed performance will only get faster as SATA drive speeds improve in the future!

The USBC-SATA-V also provides universal USB compatibility thanks to two included USB cables: A legacy USB-A cable for the most common USB ports in use today (USB 3.0/USB 2.0/USB 1.0), as well as a USB-C cable for USB 3.1 and beyond. This dock supports all 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives on the market and is Windows, Mac, and Linux compatible.

The Plugable USB 3.1 Gen 2 SATA Vertical Hard Drive Dock features a sturdy single-bay upright design that provides maximum cooling in a compact footprint. Blue LED provides at-a-glance information about power state and drive activity. Robust on/off power toggle switch helps prevent accidental shutoff. Hot swap support means that you can swap out a drive for a new one while the power is running. No need to reboot your computer or shut off the dock between drives!

Technical Specifications and Compatibility

FAQ

Q: The dock comes with two USB cables. Which USB cable is best for me?
A: Use the USB-C to USB-C cable if your computer has a USB-C port, or use the USB-C to USB-A cable for legacy USB 3.0/2.0/1.0 ports. Both cables support the latest USB 3.1 Gen 2 performance.

Q: What hard drives are compatible?
A: SATA I, II, and III 2.5” and 3.5” SSD and HDD hard drives are supported up to 8TB in size. 
Larger capacity drives will continue to be supported as they become available on the market.
PATA, IDE, and SAS hard drives are not compatible. 
Note that some operating systems may have their own size limits. For example, 32-bit operating systems like Windows XP are limited to 2TB volumes.

Q: How should I insert and remove drives?
A: To insert, simply align the hard drive’s SATA port with the SATA connector inside of the dock, then gently press down until the SATA drive is firmly seated. There is no locking mechanism, so the drive can be removed by gently lifting it out of the dock.

Q: What does the LED mean?
A: There is a blue LED on the top of the dock that displays power and data transfer activity. When the dock is both USB and AC power connected, the LED will turn on with or without a drive inserted. If a drive is inserted, the LED will blink during data transfer. If the drive is removed, the LED will turn off even if the dock still has USB and AC power.

Q: How do I power down the hard drive dock?
A: The Plugable USBC-SATA-V dock will turn off automatically upon sleep or shutdown of your computer and will respect any OS Power State settings for drive sleep under 10 minutes. The dock’s firmware will also intelligently spin down any inserted hard drive after 10 minutes of disk inactivity, even if your computer is in use. The dock has a physical on/off power toggle that can be used to manually power down the dock as well. Be sure that any data transfer tasks are completed before turning off power – interrupting a data transfer can cause file loss or disk failure!

Q: Do you have recommendations for a longer cable, or a cable extension?
A: Our Thunderbolt 3 6ft/2m 20Gb/s Cable works well for extending this drive dock further than the included USB-C cable. USB-C extension cables and some USB-C cables may have reduced capabilities and may cause reduced performance, connectivity, or reliability with this hard drive docking station.

Troubleshooting

Q: My hard drive is not detected!
A: Make sure the hard drive’s SATA connector is firmly seated on the dock’s SATA port. Some drives must be manually mounted or formatted for first time use – see this blog post for instructions to mount or format a hard drive disk for first time use.

Q: My drive is spinning, and detected in Disk Management/Disk Utility, however I get an error about needing to initialize the volume even though there is already data on my drive.
A: Your hard drive’s file format may be incompatible with your operating system. We suggest backing up existing data on the drive first. See this blog post on how to recover existing data.

Once your data is backed up, you can proceed to reformat your hard drive (see link in previous question) and migrate the data back onto your hard drive.

Q: Do I need to update my firmware?
A: This dock already comes with the latest firmware updates available. There are no other firmware versions at this time.

Q: My drive gets very hot to the touch during use.
A: Don’t worry, this is normal! Many customers are not aware that hard drives will run very warm, especially during heavy usage tasks like system backups or cloning a disk.

Internal hard drive temperatures can reach up to 35-55C (95-130F) under heavy usage, but should not exceed 60C (140 F). If excessive temperatures occur, some hard drives may trip an over temperature alert or shut off automatically for safety.

For further technical details, Google has published a detailed white paper that concludes “Failures do not increase when the average temperature increases. In fact, there is a clear trend showing that lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates. Only at very high temperatures is there a slight reversal of this trend…”

Support

Feel free to contact us directly at support@plugable.com if you have any questions. Whether you’ve purchased the USBC-SATA-V and need support or you’re considering a purchase and would like help understanding this disk dock’s features, we’re here to help.

In The Box

• 1x Hard Drive Dock
• 1x 3ft USB-C male to USB-C male USB cable
• 1x 3ft USB-C male to USB-A male USB cable
• 1x 36W 12V/3A AC Power Adapter
• 1x Quick Start Guide
• Note: Hard drive(s) not included

Model: USBC-SATA-V

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