Is Docking Station Helpful for Mac Hard Drive Recovery?

A USB hard drive or SSD docking station is an electronic device for reading, writing, cloning and recovering data from multiple storage drives via multiple bays, simultaneously. It acts as an alternative for SATA/IDE to USB cable or drives enclosure for performing the data transfer & data recovery job to a Mac, but with added benefits. Before we delve into the categories, usages, and merits of a docking station, let us know how to install a docking device.

Installation of USB Hard Drive Docking Station

1. Connect the docking station to your iMac or MacBook via a USB cable
2. Connect the power cable to the docking station and turn on the power supply
3. Insert the internal storage drive to its slot aligning the connectors to the SATA interface
4. Switch on the docking station by using the power button
5. Let your Mac detect and install the device automatically, without the need for a driver
6. The docking station is now ready for data transfer, once the installation is complete

Types & Uses of USB Drive Docking Station

There are single bay, two-bay, and multiple-bay docking stations. A single bay docking station is useful if you have a defunct MacBook Pro or iMac, and you need to retrieve the data present in Macintosh HD. First, take out the drive from the inactive Mac and use a single bay USB docking station to access its data on a working Mac computer. Copy the data from the drive to the Mac manually or try to image the drive with the help of Disk Utility.

For a two-bay docking station with in-built cloning facility, you do not need to connect the device to your Mac; you can do the task offline. Just turn on the docking station, insert the source drive and the target drive, and press the copy button. The docking station will create an exact replica of the source drive to the target drive.

The multiple-bay docking station is useful for IT technician who needs to copy the data from many drives without performing the monotonous task by the piece, thereby saving precious time and energy. In addition, multiple-bay docking station that supports RAID recovery is quite an advantage for corporate users.

Pros of USB Docking Station

• Access 2.5” or 3.5” SATA HDD or SSD to copy, transfer, or backup data
• Plug and play without the need of a driver
• Provides fast data transfer rate
• Clone a storage drive offline
• Some docking station supports RAID mode (RAID 0/1)

Cons of USB Docking Station

• Pricier than SATA/IDE to USB cable and disk enclosure
• More usage of power
• Requires cable management
• Connector damage issue
• Non-horizontal mount orientation of drive may affect its lifespan

Before you discard or upgrade an old storage drive, you should transfer the data and completely erase the drive to prevent undesired data exposure. In case, after connecting the storage drive to the docking station on a computer, the drive is inaccessible through the Finder but is visible via the Disk Utility, then you can use Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac to recover the inaccessible data.

Watch the video for more information.

Conclusion

This blog answered an important question, is docking station helpful for Mac drive recovery? The answer is Yes. You can use a docking station to access the internal Mac storage drive. Perform data recovery in case the drive has data loss issue. Use a data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery Professional to recover the lost data. Stellar Data Recovery Technician is best suited to meet the requirements of IT Technicians and AMC or Corporate users to recover data from multiple Mac computers.

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About The Author

Vishal

Vishal is a data recovery expert @Stellar. He addresses data loss scenarios on a Mac. He intends to help people solve their macOS problems. Besides, Vishal prefers to read about astronomy and autobiography, and his favorite is Steve Jobs - The man who thought different written by Karen Bluementhal.