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More Product InfoThe USB 3.0 Super Speed universal dock is designed to give you extra connectivity through the USB 3.0/2.0 port of any Windows or Mac PC.Use this part as a hub to easily connect dual monitors over either HDMI or DVI (Max Resolution 2048x1152), Ethernet, 3.5mm audio out, mic in, 4 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 all over 1 USB connection into your computer.

• Connect via DVI, HDMI, USB, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt connections with universal docking stations from Targus. Buy direct from Targus.com or locate a retail store near you.
• Plugable UD-3900 is the best universal docking station that comes superspeed USB 3.0 link from PC to dual video, ethernet, audio input/output and two USB 3.0 ports. Check More About The Product. Liztek USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station. Liztek is the best universal USB 3.0 docking station that can support up to 6 additional USB displays. You can use USB devices like printer, scanner, keyboard, mouse and more with its 4 USB 2.0 ports.

Got a spare hard drive laying around and want to put it to good use? You can do so by getting yourself a hard drive docking station. The docking station is a simple way how to use your internal hard drive as external. Just plug dock station into your PC and insert your desired hard drive, that’s it! If you have to switch between hard drives and swap them frequently, there isn’t an easier way than dock station.

You can find tons of stations on the market. Some are cheaper some more expensive, some has only one HDD slot some have 4 and more. Interfaces vary too. We have created a list of Top 7 Hard Drive Docking stations based on their performance, price and quality.

If your planning to use your internal HDD for mostly one hard drive, check out our article about Top 7 Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Enclosures.

Our Top 7 favourites:

Best Docking Station For Two Monitors

Inateck docking station is our top pick, and it does it all. This dock station has two HDD bays that can support for up to 2 x 8TB hard drives. And you can insert any form factor drive, meaning you can have 3.5″ HDD in one slot and SSD in other. This dock station also features offline cloning. If you want to transfer/copy all files from one hard drive to another, there isn’t a more simple way. The power supply on Inateck is very efficient. Dock station enters sleep mode when it’s left without operation for 30 minutes.

SISUN offers us a docking station with two slots/bays and an integrated card reader hub(XD Card/TF Card/MS(Duo/Pro) Card/CF Card/SD Card). It’s very handy when you can get two things in one – save space and your time. You get all of that for a very reasonable price. The only drawback is a lack of USB 3.0 port. SISUN features only USB 2.0. However there is eSata port, that is even slightly faster than USB 3.0. Notice that this docking station isn’t compatible with Western Digital IDE hard drive.

Unlike in most docking stations where you insert your hard drive vertically, in Sabrent Lay-Flat HDD is plugged in horizontally and it has a metal casing, protecting the hard drive from any external threats. Sabrent docking station supports all 2.5 and 3.5-inch SATA drives and connects to your PC/Mac via SuperSpeed USB 3.0. There are no capacity restrictions, and the price is very affordable. However this dock station features only one HDD slot/bay, so there is no clone option.

You can’t quite call StarTech Hard Drive Adapter Cable a dock station, but actually it’s nothing more or less than a dock station. You can plug in any 2.5″ HDD just like in a dock station. The best thing is that it doesn’t need any additional power chords and it’s very easy to carry this adapter cable around and it’s cheap. This is the least expensive way how to connect your 2.5-inch drive to the computer.

Sabrent docking station is pretty much like Inateck dock station. It has two HDD slots/bays and also features duplicator/clone function. However, you can only insert 2.5″ factor SATA drives and SSDs. This dock station is compatible with MS Windows and Mac OS and doesn’t need any additional drivers or software. With USB 3.0 your data transfers will happen in no time.

If you want your internal hard drive to perform as well as it can, you should consider StarTech.com dock station with a fan. As we all know heat kills performance, give your hard drive a cold breeze with the integrated fan. There is a special fan control wheel so you can control it’s speed manualy. This hard drive dock station has only one slot/bay, but you can connect it to your PC or Mac via USB 3.0 or eSata interface.

And finally closing our Top 7 comes the ORICO 4 Bay HDD dock station. As you can tell from its name, this dock station has four slots/bays and features duplicator/clone function. It supports all 2.5 inch & 3.5 inch HDDs and lets you have a maximum capacity of 4*8TB=32TB. This is great dock stations who switch between HDDs very frequently or require massive amounts of storage capacity.

Summing everything up

Hard drive docking station is a must get device if you want to put your old PC HDD to good use or if you are working with multiple HDDs and have to swap them frequently. Maybe external hard drive doesn’t offer exact specifications you would like to, with docking station feel free to choose your desired hard drive. We loved the clone feature on such docking stations as Inateck. It’s very nice that you can clone all your HDD data to another hard drive even in offline mode.

You can always get a docking station with standard USB 3.0 interface and should avoid USB 2.0 – it’s noticeably slower. eSata interface is another good choice. It has a slightly better transfer speeds than USB 3.0. Whether your planning to use your docking station for one HDD, we still would advise you to get a docking station with two HDD slots/bays.

I purchased the Inateck USB 3.0, and it failed within 10 minutes of use. Completely shut off and would not power back on.

I currently have an HP Elitebook laptop which I plugin into an HP proprietary docking station. When the HP is 'plugged in', I have instant access to;

• 2 monitors connected through various display adapters (at the moment; 1 display port, and 1 vga port, but other options are available)
• Several usb ports for peripherals, including a bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mouse dongle
• Power for the HP laptop
• Ethernet Adapter

I just acquired a MacBookPro 14,3. I would love to be able to plug my MBP into this docking station and have instant access to all of the above. Obviously thats not possible (nor would the power supply be correct).

What is my next best option if;

• At a minimum, I want to be able to quickly and easily switch between using the monitors, mouse and keyboard, between the PC and MBP

I've tried screen sharing from the MBP, but its laggy, and I dont see a way to do dual screen (I'm using VNC viewer). I would prefer to avoid using a switch, given all the additional wires, but I'm guessing thats my next best option?

2 Answers

At a minimum, I want to be able to quickly and easily switch between using the monitors, mouse and keyboard, between the PC and MBP

You can't if your peripherals/accessories are plugged into this docking station.

The dock connects to the HP notebook via a proprietary connector. There's no way to connect anything but the supported notebooks to this dock.

The key here is to understand that the HP dock is not an 'independent device.' It's designed for convenience when wanting to use desktop peripherals (mouse,monitor,keyboard, LAN, etc.) with your notebook; consider it part of your HP notebook when docked.

To share devices, you need 'something' that interfaces with the peripherals that can be connected to both machines.

Your only options are to:

• Ditch the dock and use a generic USB hub/dock and manually move the USB cable between computers
• Get a Bluetooth mouse/keyboard (like the Logitech MK850) that supports multiple devices (won't support video switching)
• Get a quality KVM switch that supports multiple monitors

Best Docking Station For Mac

Actually you should be able to keep the HP dock and just treat it as a generic PC workstation. You would do your switching between the dock and the monitors and other peripherals.

Since the HP does not have USB-C plugging a dock between the two computers will not work.

Note that USB-C cables support Thunderbolt-3 so a USB-C cable will work for monitors and other things. Don't confuse USB-C with USB-3, the latter looks like a standard USB connector (often blue on PCs) the former are much smaller connectors.

Best Docking Station For Mac 2018

A lot of this is finding something that works for you and without getting our hands on the actual hardware it is going to be difficult for us to make a specific recommendation that will work in your use case. So this is mostly a 'bombard you with info so you can find a solution that works for you.' situation.

Also my earlier comment about RDP. I have noticed that if you run the Microsoft Mac RDP client to connect to a PC it is very fast, just like sitting in front of the PC. So if you leave the HP on but not connected to keyboard/monitors/etc (just network) you can access it from a Mac at pretty much full speed. Allowing you to just hook up the Mac to your monitors/etc and not worrying about all the hardware switching. And that is something that you can try now for free.

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