This a great idea, and Plugable lets you take it a step further. Instead of buying individual enclosures for each hard drive, as Rhee mentions in his article, any number of USB 2.0 hard drives can be speeded up by purchasing a single Plugable USB3-SATA-U3 or USB3-SATA-UASP1 docking station.

With either of these docking stations, there is no need to buy multiple enclosures. As long as you intend to access your drives one at a time, a single Plugable 3.0 docking station will allow you to operate an unlimited number of hard drives at USB 3.0 speeds, for about the same cost as a single enclosure.

How it works

First, remove your hard drive from its current USB 2.0 enclosure, following the instructions in the CNET article. Please be aware that this will void the warranty on the hard drive. Also, there is a small but real possibility of data loss, so be sure to back up the contents of the drive before proceeding.

After removing your drives, verify that they are SATA drives. The connectors on SATA drives are flat plastic tabs with metal pads on them. Another common drive type, called IDE or PATA, was phased out several years ago, but you might still encounter one in an older external drive. These drives will not work with USB 3.0, and you should continue to use them in their USB 2.0 case. IDE drives have two rows of metal pins enclosed in a plastic wall. The photos below will help you identify which type of drive you have.

In the CNET article, Rhee goes on to talk about purchasing a new enclosure and installing the disk in it, but with a Plugable docking station, these steps aren’t necessary.

Just insert the SATA drive into the docking station, making sure the connectors are aligned correctly and plug the docking station into a USB 3.0 port on your computer. You will be able to access your data at USB 3.0 speeds without buying a new hard drive.

USB Device charging rates vary widely by device, as there is currently no standard to which all manufacturers adhere. Here we’ve listed charging rates in milliamps (mA) for several popular mobile devices. iPhone 5 and iPad mini’s in-box chargers, for example, charge at rates of 930mA and 950mA respectively, so charging with the PS12-USB2 should result in a faster charge than with included chargers.

With up to 4320 joule protection, the PS12-USB2 offers better surge suppression than many other bargain surge protectors. Joules are a measure of how large a surge is, so a higher joule rating means a protector is able to suppress a larger surge — so the higher the joule rating, the better protection a suppressor offers.

Let us know if you have any questions at all about our new product. And thanks for going out of your way for Plugable products!

Plugable PS12-USB2 12 Outlet Power Surge Protector with Built-in Dual USB Charging Ports for iPad, iPod, iPhone and other Devices

Product Details

$35.99

1. Improved support for 512e “Advanced Format” drives 2 TB and above.
2. Spin down disks after 10 minutes of inactivity, resume on access.
3. Spin down disks on system sleep, resume on system wake.

Firmware version 121026910000 avoids drive sleep and spindown to eliminate issues with inaccessible volumes, however customers may prefer the sleep features available on firmware 130107917d00.

To check the firmware version on your dock, just run the utility below:

ASMedia FW Version Check

To update the firmware on your USB3-SATA-UASP1, use the update utility and instructions below:

USB3-SATA-UASP1 Firmware V130107917d00

1. Double click the “UASP1-130107.exe” update utility.
2. If prompted by User Account Controls, select yes.
3. Check to see that your U3 is listed by the update utility as pictured here, and press start:
   
4. After upgrading verify that firmware version 130107917d00 is reported by the update utility.

Please let us know if you have questions or run into issues by posting below, or shoot an email to support@plugable.com.

Download DisplayLink Windows Driver v7.2 M0

Note: The DisplayLink installer will uninstall older DisplayLink drivers, update firmware on the device, and install new drivers. This will result in a few minutes of on/off blank screens and Windows Plug and Play complaining about no driver in the middle of the process. Wait for the install to complete, and reboot to finish it off.

So far we’ve been able to confirm the following key fixes for this driver release:

• Fixed issues with Metro apps sometimes taking an extra 10-15s to open on any screen when DisplayLink drivers are installed. In our testing we experienced no delays opening Metro apps.
• Fixed an issue with a recent Chrome update causing the browser to hang when driver v7.1 is installed on the system. 7.2 is now compatible with the latest version of Chrome.
• Fixed an issue on Win 8 with Metro video playback apps not working when in the presence of DisplayLink driver. We were able to play Netflix and Hulu via the Metro app after upgrading to 7.2 (make sure to reboot after upgrade)
• 7.2 is now compatible with devices using the newer Intel Atom chipsets with PowerVR graphics (the Clovertrail and Medfield lines). These are typically on low-end Windows 8 tablets. Keep in mind that these PowerVR based devices have a total display size limitation (which includes the native screen) of 4096×4096, so will that’ll typically only be enough for 1 external monitor to be used.

Issues:

• 7.2 also includes a re-vamped NIC driver and firmware for the UD-3000 docking station. In our testing we’ve hit one specific scenario that causes the dock to disconnect from the host machine – after we perform speedtest.net tests repeatedly, the upload speed eventually reaches 0, and connected displays begin to flash on and off. But we weren’t able to reproduce this problem through normal usage of the dock, even after downloading/uploading large files. We’re waiting to hear back from DisplayLink for further details on this issue.
• 7.2 M0 does not solve the existing problem where full-screen DirectX 11 games will not run in the presence of DisplayLink drivers (on any screen). Games must be run windowed (if they have that option), or DisplayLink drivers must be uninstalled and re-installed after.

DisplayLink lists the following fixes in the release notes for 7.2:

• Ethernet connection lost when setting MAC address to ‘not present’.
• Temporary screen corruption when changing mode from extend to clone.
• Some web-based video streaming services like Netflix may sometimes not work on DisplayLink screens.
• Ethernet packets corruption.
• On Windows XP sometimes DisplayLink monitors may remain in power save mode until replug after resuming computer from sleep.
• Ethernet packets with incorrect MAC address being sent from DisplayLink dock.
• Image quality very poor for high fps video.
• Metro applications on Windows 8 take up to 10 seconds to open.
• Blue screen when rebooting first time after installation of DisplayLink drivers.
• USB port stops responding after replugging DisplayLink device.
• Large frame sent over Ethernet using DisplayLink device trigger network errors.
• Wake On Lan doesn’t work on Windows 8.
• Ethernet doesn’t work after computer is resumed from sleep using Wake On Lan.
• Disabling Wake On Lan with magic packets is not honoured.

We’d appreciate any feedback you have on the 7.2 drivers. If you run into any issues just comment below or e-mail us at support@plugable.com, we’d be glad to help!

We didn’t want to move our subscribers automatically, since you’d wonder what was happening. So if you’re still interested in getting a quick email on new posts on technology, tips, and products, we’ll leave it up to you to subscribe again below with the new service.

We’ll be turning off Feedburner, so if you don’t subscribe below, emails will stop. Please consider it, and thanks for your interest in Plugable and the technologies we work with!

Two events this week have made attaching multiple monitors to Mac OS X systems better:

1. On Thursday March 14th, Apple released OS X 10.8.3, which fixed some key bugs in Mac OS X support for multiple displays. Fixes include avoiding potentially show-stopping login screen issues. Some smaller Apple bugs remain, including that drag/drop may get hung at times. A sleep/wake cycle kicks OS X out of that state. Also, as of 10.8.3 OS X doesn’t yet support USB 3.0 audio devices. So USB 3.0 docks and HDMI adapters won’t have any audio function (via USB 3.0; connecting via USB 2.0 will work).
2. Today, March 22nd, DisplayLink has promoted their V 2.0 driver series out of beta. For the first time, DisplayLink’s driver for Mac OS X now has support for USB 3.0-generation DisplayLink devices, like the Plugable UD-3000 Universal Laptop Docking station, and Plugable USB3-HDMI-DVI Graphics Adapter. The DisplayLink drivers still do not support OpenGL applications on the USB-attached screen, but for normal web and business application use, they’re great for enabling multiple monitors and projectors on a Mac.

We’ve been testing these new releases on our Macs here, and while things aren’t perfect, these are huge steps forward, — we are really excited about the improvements.

DisplayLink’s latest Mac OS X drivers are available here.

If you have any questions, feel free to post here and we’ll be happy to help. Thanks for going out of your way for Plugable products!

The storage model used by disk makers for the last 10+ years is changing, and this post is an effort to explain how these changes work in detail. In case of issues moving drives between different systems, the details here can help understand what factors are at play. Plugable’s full-size 3.5″ hard drive docks, the USB3-SATA-UASP1, and USB3-SATA-U3, both feature support for these new 512e Advanced Format drives. Our Plugable Storage System “PSS” products should also support 512e large volumes as they become available in 2.5″ drives.

A high-level summary is that currently there are two firmware “tracks” available for Plugable’s USB 3.0 SATA docks:

1. 32 bit ONLY compatible firmware versions UASP1 121026910000 and U3 12092681f600.
2. 32/64bit interoperable firmware versions UASP1 130107917d00 and U3 13022081f602.

So long as docks have firmware versions matching #2, large 2.19TB+ drives may be freely interchanged between docks, 32 bit, and 64 bit PCs, however 32 bit systems will not be able to access volumes using capacities above 2.19tb. For this reason, UASP1 and U3 firmware versions UASP1 121026910000 and U3 12092681f600 are recommended for 32 bit systems only.

Please refer to our “USB3-SATA-U3 Firmware Update” post if you are interested in resolving compatibility issues specific to the U3 Communicator drive docking station units with serial numbers beginning in 991 or 112 where drives formatted and initialized in other devices are not recognized by the U3. For the USB3-SATA-UASP1, refer to the USB3-SATA-UASP1 Sleep and Large Volume Firmware Update

Background

Data is stored fundamentally in bits (bits with a little b). Busses like USB often measure throughput in bits, like USB 2.0′s 480 Megabits per second (480 Mbps) or SATA III’s Gigabits per second (6 Gbp/s). Eight of these individual bits of data make up one of the capital-B “Bytes” that we usually measure data in, be it kilobytes (KB) in a document, MegaBytes (MB) in an MP3, or GigaBytes (GB) of data on a storage volume like a hard drive or SSD. Generally speaking, transfer rates industry-wide are measured in bits so transfer rates appear higher than if they were measured the same way the data is actually stored, in Bytes.

On modern solid state drives and traditional hard or even floppy disks, these bytes are grouped into sectors for actual read/write operations. Over the last decades, almost all storage drives used 512 Bytes per sector to store data since addressing individual bits and Bytes would be impractical.

Having all drives at 512 bytes per sector was nice, as there were few compatibility issues to think about when moving drives between systems or SATA docks, or when cloning them.

Evolution

512 byte sectors present problems with larger capacity drives (3TB+)- to make way for larger drives, sector sizes had to grow. This presents challenges throughout the “software stack” from the SATA hardware controllers and their firmware, their drivers, the operating system, and even to how applications may sometimes assume certain sector sizes or where sectors will start. Resulting issues are numerous and will take time for the industry to fully work out.

Over the past few years, Advanced Format Drives (512e, AF) drives reporting 512 Bytes/”logical” sector while actually using physical sectors of 4096 Bytes/”physical” sector have gained in popularity due to their higher data density potential, and resulting larger capacities. For more on how these drives work and why the industry switched, read this great ZD net post. Soon, we’ll be seeing drives that use 4096KB logical and physical sectors.

*from Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows

As you can see from the table above, determining whether you have a 512n (drive with reported and physical sectors of 512 bytes), 512e (the 512 emulation 4096 “Advanced Format” drives with physical 4096KB clusters), or 4Kn (drive with both reported and physical sectors of 4096KB) is crucial to determine which Windows operating systems will be able to recognize the drive.

How to check your drive’s sector size

To determine if you have an 512e Advanced Format Drive, open an administrative command prompt and run the following command on the NTFS formatted volume:

fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo [your drive]

[your drive] will be the letter of the disk you’re testing, so c: or d: etc.

The output will look like this, with the bold portion below being the relevant information. Bytes per Sector of 512 and bytes per Physical Sector of 4096 indicate a 512e drive:

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo h:
NTFS Volume Serial Number : 0x8a0c5e820c5e68e9
NTFS Version : 3.1
LFS Version : 1.1
Number Sectors : 0x00000001d1bcafff
Total Clusters : 0x000000003a3795ff
Free Clusters : 0x000000003a3671d7
Total Reserved : 0×0000000000000000
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
Bytes Per Cluster : 4096
Bytes Per FileRecord Segment : 1024
Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0
Mft Valid Data Length : 0×0000000000040000
Mft Start Lcn : 0x00000000000c0000
Mft2 Start Lcn : 0×0000000000000002
Mft Zone Start : 0x00000000000c0000
Mft Zone End : 0x00000000000cc820
Resource Manager Identifier : DB59D441-7AD6-11E2-BEE8-00027232D73D’

If your drive reports:
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 512
This one of the 512n volumes commonly used over the last decade. Support for these drives is universal.

If your drive reports:
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
The volume is operating in 512e mode, and should be recognized by most Windows Vista (SP1 and later) systems, as well as by newer Windows 7 and 8 PC’s. Windows 7 and Server 2008 users who do not have Service Pack 1 installed need a system update for 512e compatibility.

Macs should also be able to see the volume with no issue, however do not have native NTFS write capabilities, so they may only be able to read the drive.

If your drive reports:
Bytes Per Sector : 4096
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
A special feature of the U3 firmware v12092681f600 that re-emulates a larger 4096kb logical sector to enable Windows XP to address volumes larger than 2TB was used to partition the volume. This is a convenient way to enable access to capacities beyond 2TB on 512e large volumes under Windows XP, by increasing the sector size, we are able to overcome the 2.19TB limitation for NTFS volume sizes that 32 bit systems inherently were limited to.

Other storage controllers (besides the ASMedia controllers and firmwares combination below) will not be able recognize the drive without re-initialization and formatting- which would destroy all the data on the volume. The drive will remain accessible in U3 docks with firmware v12092681f600, or in UASP1 docks with firmware v121026910000. If using the drive with other storage controllers is important, make sure to backup all data before updating the dock firmware to v13022081f602 for the U3, or v130107917d00 for the UASP1.

Partition Alignment

If the performance of your 512e large volume has degraded when being moved from system to system, partition alignment issues may be the cause. Issues with non-bootable cloned volumes may also be due to improperly aligned volumes. Western Digital and Hitachi offer drive alignment utilities for affected operating systems. Seagate drives should not require alignment. Customers with other brands of drives will need to check with the manufacturer of their drive to determine if an alignment tool is available and/or necessary. Partition alignment issues often affect older Windows Vista and Windows XP systems where drives are frequently accessed on other operating systems.

Before initializing a new drive, using a large volume with Windows XP, or especially before cloning an Advanced Format Western Digital drive, please check the chart below to determine if aligning your drive is necessary for maximum performance and compatibility with your software environment.

Using your WD Advanced Format Hard Drive with a Windows Operating System may require you to run the WD Align Windows software utility after you install your operating system or partition and format the drive as a secondary drive. The WD Align software aligns existing partitions on the Advanced Format drive to ensure it provides full performance for certain configurations. (Please see table for configuration details)

Running Hitachi’s “HGST Align” tool may be necessary for Windows XP or Windows Vista users. Windows 7 and Windows 8 users should not need to use this utility.

How to clean and re-initialize a volume

An issue moving volumes initialized with 4096KB sector re-emulation to a 32bit storage controller may result in a drive that is visible in device manager with no partitions, and no option to re-format the drive. In this case, wiping the drive is necessary to use it on the new controller.

Customers seeking to use a 512e drive initialized on another storage controller not also offering 4096 sector re-emulation mode (most docks fit this description) will be affected by these issues. This is because of a work around implemented in the U3′s firmware for Windows XP’s 2tb volume limitation.

Customers with a U3 who are more interested in interoperability than in large volume support on Windows XP are invited to contact support@plugable.com for options. In short, applying firmware version 13022081f602, will disable the 4096KB sector re-emulation feature of the U3. Cleaning and re-initializing the volume after applying firmware update 13022081f602 will allow the volume to be used interchangeably on the widest variety of platforms possible.

Wiping a misaligned drive’s partition table will allow the volume to be re-initialized as though it were new, and a new partition table may be written when the disk is re-formatted.

Performing the following steps will destroy all data on the disk selected, so these steps must be performed with extreme caution.

To check for all attached volumes, open an administrative command prompt and enter diskpart, then enter the list disk command as shown below, and select the disk of your choice to clean. After selecting whichever disk number you want to wipe, the clean command will destroy the partition table and allow you to re-initialize the volume.

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.2.9200

Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: GRANDCENTRAL

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
——– ————- ——- ——- — —
Disk 0 Online 111 GB 1024 KB
Disk 1 Online 1863 GB 0 B
Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 4 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 5 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 6 Online 1862 GB 0 B
Disk 7 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 8 Online 465 GB 0 B

DISKPART> select disk 8

Disk 8 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART>

From here the disk is blank and can be re-initialized and formatted with whatever partitions are desired.

Windows support in the enterprise

Most end-users won’t need to worry about drive sector sizes, partition alignment, or any of the details above. Due to the specific issues documented by Microsoft with some of their enterprise applications, thorough planning for drive purchasing and migration is crucial in enterprise environments leveraging the following technologies:

• Hyper-V: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2515143
• Microsoft SQL Server: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/archive/2011/01/13/sql-server-new-drives-use-4k-sector-size.aspx
• Windows Home Server v1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2385637
• Microsoft Exchange Server: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee832792.aspx#Phys
• Third-party applications and hardware: Applications and hardware devices may have reliability and performance issues when they are connected to these new drives. Contact your application and hardware vendors about their support policy for these drives.

*from “Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows.”

For more details on 512e and 4Kn Advanced Format support across Windows versions, application specific issues, other known issues, and unsupported scenarios, read Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows.

Further details on the evolution from 512n to 512e and 4Kn drives are available in this presentation from IDEMA (International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association).

Deeper technical details for driver developers are available in Microsoft’s “Advanced format (4K) disk compatibility update (Windows)” article.

Plugable USB3-SATA-UASP1 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station (ASMedia 1053 chipset)

Product Details

$25.95

Plugable USB3-SATA-U3 USB 3.0/2.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station (ASMedia 1051E Chipset)

Product Details

$25.00

We’re really excited about this, as it allows our neighbors in the north access to great products like our Plugable UD-3000 USB 3.0 Docking Station for docking laptops and USB graphics adapters like our Plugable UGA-2K-A USB 2.0 Graphics Adapter and Plugable USB3-HDMI-DVI USB 3.0 Graphics Adapter for adding up to 6 monitors to a system.

Just order any of our offered Plugable products on Amazon.ca, and Amazon will dispatch the product from their Canada warehouse to your destination quickly along with perks like FREE Super Saver Delivery on eligible items.

Customers in Canada can now expect the same direct-order, fast, low-cost, no-hassle shipping and support experience that we consider essential to serving our customers the “Plugable” way.

For everyone who has asked about shipping to Canada in the past, thanks for your patience! And to all our customers, thanks for going out of your way for Plugable products!

1. Improved support for 512e “Advanced Format” drives.
2. Spin down disks after 10 minutes of inactivity, resume on access.
3. Spin down disks on system sleep, resume on system wake.

Any customers who have a USB3-SATA-U3 with a serial number beginning with 991 or 101 who are NOT using 32 Bit PC and wishing to access volumes above 2.19TB should apply this update: to be clear, this update is recommended for almost all users with docks beginning with serial numbers 991 or 101.

For technical details, read our post on understanding large SATA volume compatibility.

Checking firmware version

All units with serial numbers beginning with 991 and 101 should have firmware version 12092681f600.

A utility to verify firmware version on Windows is available here.

Mac users can open system information (open the Apple Menu, hold the alt/option key, and select system information). From the USB section of System Information, click to highlight the USB3-SATA-U3, and then verify the serial number as shown here:

If your serial number in system profiler begins with 991 or 100, this firmware update is recommended.

After update, docks will report a serial number matching the one shown below, 1051E121005010000:

Updating Firmware

Updating firmware on the USB3-SATA-U3 is only possible on Windows, however nearly any Windows PC with USB will do, as this update can be completed over USB 2.0. Mac users may wish to borrow a friend or neighbor’s Windows PC to complete this update, however for Mac users can also use virtual machine options like Parallels or VirtualBox to complete this update by assigning the USB3-SATA-U3 device to the virtual machine, and using it to complete the update. Mac users who cannot get access to a USB 2.0 capable Windows PC can instead contact support@plugable.com to make other arrangements.

To update your USB3-SATA-U3, first download the firmware update utility here, and follow the steps below.

1. Double click the“U3_FW_Updater_130220.exe” update utility.
2. If prompted by User Account Controls, select yes.
3. Check to see that your U3 is listed by the update utility as pictured here, and press start:
   
4. After upgrading verify that firmware version 13022081f602 is reported by the update utility.

Please let us know if you have questions or run into issues by posting below, or shoot an email to support@plugable.com.

Plugable USB3-SATA-U3 USB 3.0/2.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station (ASMedia 1051E Chipset)

Product Details

$25.00