StarTech Standalone Hard Drive Eraser And USB 3.0 Dock Capsule Review
by Billy Tallis on February 16, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- USB 3.0
- SATA
- DAS
- StarTech.com
Final Words
The StarTech Standalone Hard Drive Eraser and USB 3.0 Dock's feature set is great, and there are no obvious omissions. All of its features are easy to use and as self-explanatory as can be expected from a screen that only shows two lines of text; no manual is needed, but a one-page leaflet further clarifies how to use the device.
The dock's performance is functional, but disappointing. The USB dock capability is clearly a secondary concern. It's fast enough to mostly keep pace with a mechanical hard drive, but its performance with a solid state drive is much worse than we would have expected based just on the SATA 2 and USB 3.0 speed limits. Its random access performance is particularly bad and clearly much worse than some external SSDs we've tested that are also using USB to SATA bridge chips. This isn't a device anyone should consider as their primary external storage interface. In the context of data security it is sufficient for inspecting what's on a drive or perhaps for re-imaging after wiping. If you don't need to erase drives routinely, you can get higher-performing docks for a fraction of the cost: this dock has a MSRP of $283.99 compared to only $71.99 for a StarTech USB 3.1 dock that supports 6Gbps SATA and UASP.
As a hard drive eraser, the performance is also a concern. Despite sustaining over 200MB/s of writes over USB, its full-drive overwrite modes only wipe drives at 125MB/s. In some cases this won't matter, as a big drive might need to be left as an overnight job either way, but issuing the same write command with an incremented logical block address shouldn't be hard. It seems likely that the FPGA is being used to implement a processor core that just isn't fast enough; it also seems like that processor is getting in the way for the USB mode when the SATA commands should be passed directly to the drive. Fortunately, the dock is equipped to receive firmware updates, so StarTech might be able to improve things. If the time taken to wipe a hard drive is not a concern, then the eraser dock is a very convenient turnkey solution. If you have to process a very large number of drives and especially if you have to image large batches of drives, a computer with multiple hot-swap bays will be preferable.
The one mode where I have no performance complaints is also the mode I actually need. Performing an ATA Secure Erase under Windows is inconvenient at best and frequently impossible. With the addition of a hot-swap bay to our SSD testbed PC, what had been the most ridiculously complicated step of the test procedure is now foolproof and fast. With a minimum of ten erases per drive needed for our client drive test suite, the eraser dock is a very welcome tool and it's just about perfect for this use case.
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Samus - Wednesday, February 17, 2016 - link
Interesting product, but really expensive. You could build a great drive wiping station for $100 bucks, one that could wipe 4+ drives simultaneously. All you need is a semi-modern motherboard with a few SATA ports, a USB flash drive to boot Derik's Boot and Nuke, and a cozy case lined with rubber to set the drives on or a case with tool-less drive insert/ejection. Boot and Nuke can be scripted to run autonomously so you wouldn't need a keyboard/mouse/monitor, just turn the PC on with drives attached, wait for the flash drive access light to stop blinking and press 1-5 to run scripts 1-5 which you define. It can output a log to serial\parallel port, or write a recurring log to a network share or the USB flash drive itself. I setup a station years ago that printed a report to a networked printer by just outputting the log to an IP address, and the printer would pick it up as a PCL job,This is just 3x more expensive than it should be. If it did 2-4 drives simultaneously, had eSATA, working USB 3.0 UASP, more custom configurations/scripting and perhaps a built in thermal label printer, $300 would be justified. But as it is, it's just a glorified (and crippled) $30 drive dock.
erple2 - Sunday, February 28, 2016 - link
I'm not sure that Darik's boot and nuke is sufficient, though. Most hard drives (all hard drives made after about 2001) implement the ata secure erase feature in firmware (it's part of the ata spec). So a simple hdparm command will do what you need to securely erase any HDD. Note that the "overwrite n times with alternating 0's and 1's" method isn't really any more helpful today as it was in the past. Even a single full overwrite buys you only a barely better than 50% chance of getting the value of the given bit. Plus with the density of data HDDs today, it's very nearly impossible to even read a drive without its read head.As for SSD, that's probably more complex, but the "sanitize" command should be sufficient. It passes nist sp800-88, at least.
azrael- - Thursday, February 18, 2016 - link
I see a Seagate HDD was used in the test. Don't Seagate drives have a history of destroying themselves (albeit at usually the most inopportune time) making this a moot exercise... ;-)Senti - Friday, February 19, 2016 - link
Seagate drive is another insurance that data is really destroyed.scaryhalo - Saturday, February 20, 2016 - link
Coffee and Doughnut on screen, large grin on face, strange look from fellow commuters! You sir, are chuckle master today :)Reginaldpeebottom - Thursday, February 18, 2016 - link
I think the market they are seeking to fill is obviously a niche one and the price is appropriate. All the suggestions here of it being cheaper to setup something that could do more drives, or faster, or "better" somehow miss the point that this product is aimed at something like a small-medium sized professional/business office (Doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc) where they don't have a permanent IT person, they have staff with computer skills which are minimal beyond their work applications, and they need or are required to deal with privacy related issues upon decommissioning old computer HDs. This product is perfect for that: it looks simple to use, is stand alone, and time really isn't an issue since th staff person just walks away and does her/his work. The print out is great too if used as a way to have a record of the job being done for auditing purposes. $300 price tag is something businesses like that won't even blink at. It's not that expensive and it can be expensed.bobbozzo - Sunday, February 21, 2016 - link
Hi, I would have liked to see a few words about build quality...I was looking for an eSATA dual-dock, and came across StarTech and some other brands, but all of them had lots of bad reviews complaining about unreliable connections, etc.
thanks!
Sam Snead - Saturday, March 12, 2016 - link
If you really wanted to make sure no one could ever read a drive, wouldn't it be better to drill a few holes through the drive and toss it into the nearest body of water? I've heard a few .45 caliber slugs thru the drive also makes it unreadable, but that is awfully non-PC.