StarTech.com releases 6-Bay Hard Drive Duplicator Dock with eSATA and USB 3.0

If you work in IT, you know how laborious it can be to get new computers up and running. The best way to do it is with a single image, so you do not need to manually; one by one. In other words, you install a disk image to multiple machines; the image not only has Windows, but other software and settings too

While this can be done in many ways, including over network or using optical media, a hard drive duplicator is probably the fastest. StarTech.com announces a new product that not only serves as a duplicator, but as 6-drive dock too. Offering USB 3.0 and eSata connectivity, it is sure to meet the needs of many businesses and some home users too.

"When used as a standalone drive duplicator, this product enables users to clone or erase up to five hard drives or solid-state drives simultaneously, without a host computer connection. The 6-Bay Duplicator and Dock can also be used as a hard drive docking station for up to six drives, over a USB 3.0 or eSATA host connection to a computer", says StarTech.com

Juliet Wei, Senior Product Manager for StarTech.com's line of data storage products explains "the new dock is a powerful product that greatly simplifies drive management and IT deployment. The dock enables IT professionals to significantly boost their productivity, by enabling mass drive duplication and data erasure".

StarTech.com shares the following features and benefits.

• 1:5 mass drive duplication and 5-drive mass erasing
• Hassle-free, standalone operation with a built-in digital LCD display
• eSATA and USB 3.0 host connections. Backward compatibility with USB 2.0, USB 1.1
• Single-pass and multi-pass overwriting / DoD erasing for wiping the contents of up to five drives simultaneously
• 2.5 in or 3.5 in form factor drive support
• SATA revision I/II/III (1.5/3.0/6.0 Gbps) drive support
• Built-in dual cooling fans with speed control

What makes this particularly cool is the ability to not only copy drives, but erase them too. If your business computers contain sensitive information -- both employee and customer -- you can't simply format it and throw it in a dumpster. Bad guys may be able to recover the data. True, you should physically destroy the drives too, but properly deleting them should be a precursor.

Of course, cloning, erasing and reading multiple drives like his can generate heat, so two fans are inside to keep things cool. If the fan noise is too high, or you want to lower temperatures further, you can increase or decrease the fan speed with the individual controls -- very cool.

If you have a need for such a device, you can buy it here for $914.99. While not inexpensive, it is a perfectly acceptable price for all it can do.