130
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #223,869 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
Overheating problems
Bought the unit for a computer with P7P55D Pro motherboard running Linux (Fedora 12). The system recognized the port multiplier without issues; two disks over eSATA worked out of the box. Tested it with two 500G drives (a Seagate and a WDC). Reading from a single drive gives a decent ~75 MB/s; simultaneous reads from two drives drop the rate to 45 MB/s.
A major problem, though: while idle, the drives hover around ~47 degC. With ~1hr of heavy reading, they heat up to ~60 degC (with ambient temps around ~20 degC). The design of this dock blocks _all_ airflow to the bottom end of the drives, leading to severe overheating. This makes BlackX practically useless for duplication of larger drives; they'll overheat/fail long before the duplication has finished. E.g., I managed to copy ~150G of a 500G drive before it hit 60degC and stopped.
Looks like a major design flaw; plan to return it.
December 2009 · Electronics · verified purchase