Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Pro LAN
Posted on 22nd Jan 2010 at 10:48 by Richard Swinburne with 16 comments
We recently had a look at Sharkoon's SATA QuickPort USB 3.0 in our USB 3.0 article (who'd have thought!), but just recently Sharkoon has released its SATA QuickPort Pro with an Ethernet socket.
The 'QuickPort' product is not unique to Sharkoon - it is a rebrand that a few other companies, such as Thermaltake, have done in the past. However since the USB 3.0, and now the LAN version, Sharkoon is carving out a little market niche.
Why do we care about LAN though? Well it simply makes any hard drive instantly accessible over a network, instead of adding an external or caddied hard drive and fiddling around with shares.
Click to enlarge
If you're after a proper NAS product though, you wouldn't buy the QuickPort because it's not designed for a long-term solution. It clearly doesn't stop dust for starters, and gravity alone isn't known as the best security against knocks.
Click to enlarge
We do like the extra connectors though: you still get the option of connecting via eSATA and USB 2.0, and when using USB it has the SD/MMC slot and also acts as a USB hub for two additional ports. The biggest downside is that the Ethernet is 10/100, not Gigabit. Transferring data at 10MB/s and under is painfully slow when sending Gigabytes let alone Terabytes of data.
At £45 it's arguably expensive enough already for a peripheral, but it's appeal is a bit weird - everyone who has seen it in the office has gone "Oh, yea, nice idea!" but no one really can think of a situation where they'd really need one. The deal-breaker for everyone was the 100M Fast Ethernet though, because in an age where Gigabit is standard, it's just too slow.
Click to enlarge
If you do juggle bare drives and need access to them on many PCs then check it out, but really, is it a product for a market that barely exists? If you really want one let us know because we'd love to know in what way you'd use it!
The 'QuickPort' product is not unique to Sharkoon - it is a rebrand that a few other companies, such as Thermaltake, have done in the past. However since the USB 3.0, and now the LAN version, Sharkoon is carving out a little market niche.
Why do we care about LAN though? Well it simply makes any hard drive instantly accessible over a network, instead of adding an external or caddied hard drive and fiddling around with shares.
Click to enlarge
If you're after a proper NAS product though, you wouldn't buy the QuickPort because it's not designed for a long-term solution. It clearly doesn't stop dust for starters, and gravity alone isn't known as the best security against knocks.
Click to enlarge
We do like the extra connectors though: you still get the option of connecting via eSATA and USB 2.0, and when using USB it has the SD/MMC slot and also acts as a USB hub for two additional ports. The biggest downside is that the Ethernet is 10/100, not Gigabit. Transferring data at 10MB/s and under is painfully slow when sending Gigabytes let alone Terabytes of data.
At £45 it's arguably expensive enough already for a peripheral, but it's appeal is a bit weird - everyone who has seen it in the office has gone "Oh, yea, nice idea!" but no one really can think of a situation where they'd really need one. The deal-breaker for everyone was the 100M Fast Ethernet though, because in an age where Gigabit is standard, it's just too slow.
Click to enlarge
If you do juggle bare drives and need access to them on many PCs then check it out, but really, is it a product for a market that barely exists? If you really want one let us know because we'd love to know in what way you'd use it!
16 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replyagree with the consensus that its neat but cant think why i would need it
maybe if i did a lot of off site backups but i don't so.....
Cheap NAS boxes and netbooks come without...
"Instant" Backups, say for example you work in a Pc repairment Shop, you could Plug some HD at the same time to speed up your work, you know, if you get say three of these, connect them to your shop litle network and its done, without the need to connect every single HD at a time to your storage PC.
I see this could be used this way, since here many ppl buy PC for the simple use, you know, having no idea of partitions and stuff, so they just save all their data in single HD's.
And yes, i said "Instant" cuz the Fast Ethernet port is a shame :(
Speaking for myself, whilst I intend to upgrade my stuff, just at the moment all of my (limited) array of equipment is 100mbit.
Agreed! I worked at a Pc Shop doing the repairs and the other technical stuff and had a lot of hard drives to test, singles or from a pc and it's a life and time saviour. Someone who also get's to fix buddy's pc's it's a valuable asset since he hasn't to open his pc to plug in the drives, even with hot swap.
But I do agree on one thing, it's a niche item.
It should have had gigabit, it's not like gigabit is exactly expensive these days. If you havent yet, go and check prices on gigabit switches, especially used. At this point there is little excuse for not using gigabit.
While someone said it is probably because of the the chip, they just released one with SATA 3. This seems like they are headed backwards.
Although I've not read the manual, I'd say no. USB over a network required clevery funky drivers etc, this isn't the sort of device for that.
It's cheaper and serves a greater purpose.