Today Amazon is offering the Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay-Flat Docking Station for just $19.99. That’s 50% off the MSRP of $40 (you usually see them for around $30) and definitely a great price for a very handy accessory to have on hand at all times. There are over 30,000 reviews on Amazon with a solid 4.4/5 rating and I own one myself and can recommend it.

Sabrent USB 3.0 SATA External Hard Drive Dock for $19.99

Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA Docking Station for External Hard Drives, Lay Flat

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The Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA external hard drive accepts both 3.5″ and 2.5″ SATA hard drives and SSDs, although it’s clearly designed specifically for 3.5″ drives. You don’t have to fiddle with the connectors every time you unplug and reconnect the drive; you just put it in the bracket and you’re done. There’s also a cover protecting the drive, although you may want to leave this open when you’re stressing it to ensure better heat dissipation. The USB 3.0 interface theoretically supports a maximum of 6Gbps (or around 625MB/s), although we all know that speeds are lower in practice. Still, it’s a huge improvement over the maximum 125MB/s you get with USB 2.0 docking stations.

The external hard drive dock is plug and play with Windows, meaning no additional drivers are required. There’s also a convenient on/off switch, so you don’t have to worry about phantom power when it’s not in use. Got internal drives lying around? You can effectively turn any internal hard drive into an external hard drive. For my particular use case, I use this dock as a quick way to get files from a hard drive that’s not installed in my system. That’s much faster than opening my side panel to access a SATA connector. The package includes a USB 3.0 cable and Acronis True Image cloning software.

If you already have an internal hard drive, docks are a good alternative to buying a new external hard drive. Otherwise, it’s easier to just buy one of the many excellent external hard drives available.