Thermaltake BlacX 5G Docking Station Review

Manufacturer: Thermaltake, Inc.
Product Name: BlacX 5G
Model Number: ST0019
UPC: 841163038956
Price As Tested: $46.99 (Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Thermaltake.

For our readers in the field of IT, data recovery whether from a dying disk, virus infection, or a dying system is a common occurrence. While slave drive kits work, they can look messy. Thermaltakes solution to this is its line of BlacX vertical docking stations. Benchmark Reviews will be looking at the updated Thermaltake BlacX 5G docking station, which will give users SATA 6Gb/s and SuperSpeed USB-3.0 support allowing for the fastest possible transfer speeds. This review will be evaluating whether the Thermaltake BlacX 5G dock is something every IT department should have or if there are better solutions on the market.

When writing a review of a device like the Thermaltake BlacX 5G there are a couple of factors that should be looked into. First, what is the performance of a device like the BlacX 5G, what limitations does it have, and what does it offer over its competition? The goal of today's reviews is to answer all of those questions, mostly from a IT professionals point of view. So without further introduction let us start into the review of the Thermaltake BlacX 5G.

Features and Specifications

Features

• Supports USB 3.0 SuperSpeed - Maximum Transfer Rate up to 5.0 Gbps.
• Backward-Compatible with USB 2.0 (Max: 480 Mbps) & 1.1 (Max: 12 Mbps).
• Premium Shielded USB 3.0 Cable - Corrosion Resistant Plating & Heavy Gauge Wires for Years of Reliable Use. .
• Plug & Play Installation - Ready to Work in seconds, No Software needed.
• Supports 2.5" & 3.5" SATA I/II/3.0 & SSD Hard Drives in ALL Capacities.
• Hot-Swap Capability for Rapid Multi HDDs Access & Exchange.
• Trendy Docking Station Design maximizes Heat Dissipation & Exhaust.
• Windows & Mac OS Compatible.
• Windows 7 - 32 & 64-bit Ready!
• Supports SATA III (6 Gb/s) Hard Drives with maximum speed up to 5.0 Gb/s (maximum theoretical speed offered by USB 3.0).

Specifications

Closer Look: Thermaltake BlacX 5G Dock

From the IT professionals point of view a product doesn't need to look as good so much as it needs to work. Still a product that can be both functional and beautiful is always a good thing and the Thermaltake BlacX 5G delivers in both areas.

From the top, you can see that the Thermaltake BlacX 5G is designed for both 3.5" and 2.5" drives. When a user inserts a 3.5" drive into the bay the flap used to protect the internals drops away back into the recesses of the BlacX 5G. When a 2.5" drive bay is inserted, the flap helps give the smaller drive stability so that it does not move around damaging the fragile connections inside. The Superspeed light only comes one when the BlacX is used with a USB 3.0 connection otherwise the Superspeed light stays off.

The BlacX drive requires a power brick to power the unit and the attached drive. This allows for the use of even the most power hungry drives on the market including the Velociraptor 10,000RPM drives.

Thermaltake includes a 2.5" and a 3.5" silicone glove for the hard drive being installed into the Thermaltake BlacX 5G. This gives them a more snug fit and should a unfortunate series of events cause the BlacX and HDD inside of it to take it a tumble the silicone glove will help cushion the blow a little bit.

The USB3.0 connection is a standard USB3.0 Type B connection. This means that should the cable fail (like on our test unit) it can easily be replaced with a standard USB3.0 type A -> type B cable.

Testing Methodology

Testing Methodology

In order to push the Thermaltake BlacX 5G to its limits I used my old SSD a Patriot Inferno 60GB. This gives us fantastic random and sequential speeds along with performance I can compare to previous internal performance. We will be running our SSD through our standard SSD suite using AS-SSD, AIDA64, ATTO Benchmark, and CrystalDiskMark. This will allow us to effectively test the performance of the Thermaltake BlacX 5G.

Test System

• Motherboard:MSI P67-GD65
• System Memory: G.Skill Ares 16GB 1866MHz
• Processor: Intel Core i5 2500k @ 4.7GHz
• Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
• Video: 2 x GTX 580
• Disk Drive 1: Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240GB
• Disk Drive 2: 4 x 1TB Seagate 7200RPM
• Optical Drive: DVD Burner
• Enclosure: Silverstone Raven RV02-E
• PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
• Monitor: 2 x ASUS 27"
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit

Test Results Disclaimer

This article utilizes benchmark software tools to produce operational IOPS performance and bandwidth speed results. Each test was conducted in a specific fashion, and repeated for all products. These test results are not comparable to any other benchmark application, neither on this website or another, regardless of similar IOPS or MB/s terminology in the scores. The test results in this project are only intended to be compared to the other test results conducted in identical fashion for this article.

AS-SSD Benchmark

Alex Schepeljanski of Alex Intelligent Software develops the free AS SSD Benchmark utility for testing storage devices. The AS SSD Benchmark tests sequential read and write speeds, input/output operational performance, and response times. Because this software receives frequent updates, Benchmark Reviews recommends that you compare results only within the same version family.

Our AS-SSD test shows quite clearly that the USB3.0 interface is able to out perform USB2.0 interface of its predecessor by almost 100MB/s. This can be useful to our readers who may need to quickly move data off of a failing or infected drive before continuing their work on a system. Once AS-SSD moves on to the 4K benchmark the speeds change quite drastically with the Thermaltake BlacX only managing a meager 17MB/s read speed and a 36MB/s write speed. Our readers may expect the 4K read test with a queue depth of 64 would show much better performance much better than it does. The problem is that while the Thermaltake BlacX does support USB Attached SCSI (UAS) the other end of the interface on my MSI P67-GD65 motherboard does not. This means that the BlacX switches back to the tried and true BOT transfer mode which does not benefit from increasing the queue depth.

AIDA64 Benchmark

Many enthusiasts are familiar with the FinalWire AIDA64 benchmark suite, but very few are aware of the Disk Benchmark tool available inside the program. The AIDA64 Disk Benchmark performs linear read and write bandwidth tests on each drive, and can be configured to use file chunk sizes up to 1MB (which speeds up testing and minimizes jitter in the waveform). Because of the full sector-by-sector nature of linear testing, Benchmark Reviews endorses this method for testing SSD products, as detailed in our Solid State Drive Benchmark Performance Testing article. However, Hard Disk Drive products suffer a lower average bandwidth as the capacity draws linear read/write speed down into the inner-portion of the disk platter. AIDA64 Disk Benchmark does not require a partition to be present for testing, so all of our benchmarks are completed prior to drive formatting.

With an average read speed of 177.1MB/s the Thermaltake BlacX will make quick work of even the largest files. There are some major drops in bandwidth during the test but for the most part the speeds are very consistent and prove that the BlacX is a very capable enclosure when it comes to sequential read speeds.

On the other side of the coin, the sequential write speeds of the BlacX are not so great with only doubling the speed of its predecessors USB2.0 interface.

ATTO Benchmark

The ATTO Disk Benchmark program is free, and offers a comprehensive set of test variables to work with. In terms of disk performance, it measures interface transfer rates at various intervals for a user-specified length and then reports read and write speeds for these spot-tests. There are some minor improvements made to the 2.46 version of the program that allow for test lengths up to 2GB. ATTO Disk Benchmark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested. Please consider the results displayed by this benchmark to be basic bandwidth speed performance indicators.

ATTO gives some very optimistic numbers for our read and write speeds with a read speed maxing out at 192MB/s and a write speed maxing out at 171MB/s. This paints a pretty picture for large sequential transfers. What also becomes visible is that if a transfer job is going to consist of many small files then the BlacX struggles some and our transfer speeds take a hit.

USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0 Benchmark

Just to give a comparison I added an ATTO testing using a USB2.0 connection to give a clear view on the differences between their performance. Our ATTO test using a USB2.0 connection shows lower performance across the board where the Thermaltake BlacX is only able to attain a 30MB/s write speed and a 35MB/s read speed a whopping 150MB/s less than the USB3.0 test run just moments earlier.

CrystalDiskMark Benchmark

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 is a file transfer and operational bandwidth benchmark tool from Crystal Dew World that offers performance transfer speed results using sequential, 512KB random, and 4KB random samples. For our test results chart below, the 4KB 32-Queue Depth read and write performance was measured using a 1000MB space. CrystalDiskMark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested, and all drives are formatted with NTFS on the Intel P67 chipset configured to use AHCI-mode. Benchmark Reviews uses CrystalDiskMark to illustrate operational IOPS performance with multiple threads. In addition to our other tests, this benchmark allows us to determine operational bandwidth under heavy load.

CrystalDiskMark paints a much prettier picture for the sequential read and write speeds than ourAS-SSD and AIDA64 benchmarks did, showing a read speed of 185MB/s and a write speed of 182MB/s.

Thermaltake 5G BlacX Dock Final Thoughts

I really like the Thermaltake BlacX 5G and as our ATTO test shows the increase in sequential performance on the USB3.0 interface of the Thermaltake BlacX 5G is nothing short of amazing. For our users this means less time spent waiting for transfers of large files. To put this into perspective at the maximum speed of 35MB/s of USB2.0 transferring 100GB of data will take almost 49 minutes compared to the 9 minutes that the 191MB/s of USB3.0 would take. As the famous saying goes, "Time is money" and time spent transferring files is time that could more effectively be spend doing other things especially for a tech working on many different project.

I do have some concerns about the Thermaltake BlacX 5G. Due to the much lower performance of small and random reads at all queue depths if enthusiests plan on using the BlacX 5G as an external scratch disk or will need lots of small reads and writes at high queue depth they need to make sure that the motherboard they are using supports USB Attached SCSI (UAS). If enthusiasts can use UAS instead of the standard BOT mode they can expect to see much greater performance in both of these fields which will help close the gap between a drive being used internally and a USB3.0 attached disk.

Thermaltake 5G BlacX Dock Conclusion

Performance in a product like Thermaltake BlacX 5G is about being able to read and write at the highest possible speed. The Thermaltake BlacX 5G has incredibly high performance to start and when the firmware is upgraded to enable USB Attached SCSI then high queue depth performance dramatically improves and even our sequential performance improves noticeably. The 192MB/s read speed of the BlacX 5G is particularly wonderful when compared to the original USB2.0 connection and its 35MB/s maximum transfer speed.

The Thermaltake BlacX 5G has exactly the appearance that I want my equipment to have. It sits on my desk at work looking benign and beautiful without being flashy or distracting. The black and brushed aluminum exterior looks great in many different scenarios and the blue glow of its power switch add some nice ambience to an otherwise boring work area.

The Thermaltake BlacX 5G is as far as I can tell a well-constructed device, it has some nice heft to it and survived constantly having drives inserted and removed. I found that the SATA connections had sufficient holding power to make sure that inserted drives do not lose their connection or move around inside of the BlacX 5G housing. Unfortunately, the Thermaltake BlacX 5G only has a 1 year warranty, although this is a rather standard warranty period it would have been nice to see a Thermaltake stand behind its product more by providing a two or three year warranty instead.

The Thermaltake BlacX 5G is an extremely attractive product from a functionality standpoint. It is able to span multiple generations of connections allowing almost any HDD to be dropped into it and connected back to any computer. Although the speeds may not be ideal without a USB3.0 connection and a SATAIII drive it is nice to know that in a pinch the BlacX 5G can be used to recover data from an older drive or with a older system to recover data in a emergency.

For $46.99 (Newegg), the Thermaltake BlacX 5G falls right in the middle of the pack for external enclosures, although once you get beyond the $50 range many of these enclosures turn out to be a multiple bay enclosures or NAS units. It is a fair price for a product that provides easy access to an any drives that an enthusiast may have laying around and provide USB Attached SCSI at the same time.

Overall the Thermaltake BlacX 5G is a wonderful product that provides exactly what many IT professionals need in their workplace. Due to its high performance and ease of use I gladly award the Thermaltake BlacX 5G the Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer award.

Pros:

+ Supports USB Attached SCSI with proper firmware
+ Non proprietary USB3.0A to USB3.0B connection allows for easy replacement of a cable
+ Up to 10x the performance of its predecesor
+ SATAIII Internal Connection
+ Easy disk swapping

Cons:

- Lackluster performance in random read and write in BOT transfer mode
- 1 year warranty
- Does not offer IDE support

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.00
• Appearance: 9.00
• Construction: 8.50
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 8.50

Final Score: 8.8 out of 10.

Benchmark Reviews invites you to leave constructive feedback below, or ask questions in our Discussion Forum.

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