Thermaltake BlacX Review

Installation

Installation of a hard drive is where this docking station really shines. The back of the BlacX has two keyed connectors, one for the USB cable and one for the external power connector. One simply has to plug in the power connector, plug in a hard drive by lining its connectors up and gently pushing down on the hard drive until it will not go any farther. Once the hard drive is seated you can turn on the BlacX, wait a few seconds for the hard drive to initialize and then plug in the USB connector. Windows will recognize it and bang you are up and running. The first time you use the BlacX Windows may take a few moments to recognize it as a mass storage device and install the proper drivers (which do not require any input from you since they come with XP SP2).


To remove the drive you simply turn off the unit via the power button and with one hand holding the hard drive you gently yet firmly press down on the ejector button located on the top front of the unit and the hard pops out so you can insert another one. That is the installation and removal of a hard drive for the BlacX in a nut shell. No fuss, no hassles with drives, no tools required and no sweat!

The downside to this ease of installation is that the hard drive is not protected while it is in use, and more importantly its controller board is vulnerable to accidental damage while in the dock. You can easily remove the hard drive from the unit without using the ejector button and this means a good bump might knock it loose. These problems are annoying but by sacrificing security you do get a dock capable of an extremely fast hard drive swap. All in all there are really only three things that would have been nice to have seen on this unit. These improvements would have been a plastic shield to protect the backside of the drive from damage, a tighter lockup so that the hard drive doesn't go flying from the dock when bumped, and having the ejector button automatically cut power to the hard drive (thus reducing the chances of Cow Belling your drive). Apparently, the higher end models that came out recently have addressed these issues and there is now a hard drive cover that does do the first two of our wish list items and renders the third negligible. Hopefully, Thermaltake will update this model as well and address these potential problems.

Total installation time is about 2 -5 minutes depending on speed of your system, and then after that it should be about 1-2 minutes until you can use the installed drive.

Please note: BEFORE removing the hard drive from the BlacX please power down the unit and give it enough time for the hard drive platters to stop spinning. If you just eject it while it is still power up you may hear the infamous Cow Bell of DEATH. If you are fortunate to have never heard this horrible sound (and hopefully you never will as you will never forget it….I still have nightmares about it….well not really but it is very distinctive), this is where the hard drive read/write heads slam into the spinning platters completely wrecking the drive.