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The Vantec NST-D100 drive dock contains a SATA+power plug at the bottom of a rectangular cavity which mates directly with a bare 3.5 inch SATA hard drive. It has a USB2 and a ESATA socket on the back. The button on the front powers the drive off and on, and the bar below shows drive activity. |
Although there have been a few bad reviews (see the reviews on Newegg - some have overheated, or the USB did not work) mine worked fine with a Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5TB SATA hard drive (Barracuda 7200.11).
I am using it for swappable backup hard drives with dirvish. It does two great things - it connects directly to hard drives, without needing swap trays. It also powers the backup drive with a different power supply than the main system. If the power supply on the main system overvoltages and roasts the drives in the box, this one will still survive.
I have no data on long-term survivability; the socket on the unit or the plug on the hard drive are probably not designed for hundreds of mate/unmate cycles, and the plating may wear off. All I have done so far is format the drive and copy a few gigabytes of data.
I bought mine at Fry's, but Newegg is selling them for $35. There are also dual-drive docks - not sure how those connect to ESATA, though.