This SSD docking station is one of the best investments I've made for my iMac – here's why

It seems I’m always running out of room on my iMac drives. Why? Video files. You see, I film a lot of videos in 4K ProRes, which means the files can get very large. Just yesterday, I filmed a video for my YouTube channel, and the file from the camera was over 100GB.

Those add up fast.

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Obviously, problems arise when you regularly have to deal with files that large on limited space. I was always deleting files to make room for new ones, and that carousel never seemed to stop turning.

Until I purchased the Sabrent USB SSD docking station.

This little piece of tech has really saved me from having to delete files I’d rather keep, just to make room for new video clips. And because it’s a 4-bay dock, I can keep slapping in drives (it supports up to 16TB hard drives) to ensure I always have space. Even better, the docking station has a fan to keep those drives a bit cooler. This is especially important when working with video, as the read/write speeds will be pushed to their limits, causing heat to build up.

The specs 

• Up to 4x 16TB hard drives .
• Supports 2.5 inch SSD SATA drives (up to a maximum thickness of 12.5mm/0.49 Inch (2.75 Inch x 3.93 Inch x 0.49 Inch) with LED indicator for power and HDD access.
• 5Gbps Transfer Speeds USB3.0 super speed interface.
• Also compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1. 
• Tool-Free Installation. 
• Built-in cooling fan that can be switched on and off as needed.

My experience

Quite honestly, there’s not a whole lot to say about this simple bit of plastic and metal. It comes in two pieces: the bottom piece holds the drives, and the top piece has the fan. There’s also an On/Off button and LED indicators to inform you which bays have drives. You’ll find a small magnet keeps the two pieces together, which makes it easy to pop off the top and insert (or remove) a drive. Finally, on the top portion of the docking station, you’ll find a button to turn the fan on or off.

When I received the Sabrent docking station, I ripped it open, connected the bottom half to my iMac, connected it with the included USB-A cable, and inserted a drive. The iMac immediately recognized the drive, and I was able to format and start using it.

Simple.

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Over the past few months, I’ve added two more drives to the docking station, and every time, it went off without a hitch.

Speeds

This was a big deal for me. I need to be able to copy those large files to external drives without having to wait hours. I have one external drive (that isn’t in the docking station), and the write times on it are so slow that it can take over an hour to copy an 80GB file.

That won’t do.

The Sabrent docking station gives you transfer speeds of up to 5GB/s. As long as you’re using an SSD capable of high read/write speeds, you’ll be just fine. I recently purchased yet another SSD (this time a Crucial BX500) and was able to copy a 100GB file in roughly four minutes. 

That will do.

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The only way to improve the speed of this docking station would have been to use USB-C instead of USB-A. USB-C can achieve data transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps with USB 3.1, which is twice as fast as USB-A’s maximum speed of 5Gbps with USB 3.0. So, yeah, USB-C would have been nice, but the 5GB/s works fine for most use cases. And given the $89 price tag, USB-A is just fine.

Reliability

As I said, I’ve been using this docking station for a few months now and have not had a problem yet. It’s as reliable as they come. Even when we had a power outage, I rebooted my iMac, pressed the docking station’s ON button, and the drives immediately appeared in Finder.

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The fan works and has kept the drives relatively cool, even when copying massive files. I can hold my hand over the top opening and feel a slight warm breeze lifting toward my palm.

It works.

What more can I say?

Seriously.

ZDNET’s buying advice

Not everyone needs six or seven external drives attached to their computer. If you do, the Sabrent USB 3.0 4-Bay docking station is a great option. It’s affordable, easy to use, and allows you to expand your storage capacity by a considerable amount. If you want to go really crazy, add four 16TB drives to give you plenty of storage.

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This docking bay makes it easy for anyone to plug and play their way to extra storage, so if that sounds like a need you have, don’t hesitate to buy.