Value and Conclusion
- The Zalman MH200 U3 will set you back around 60 Euro (incl. taxes) or 80 US Dollar (excl. taxes).
- Excellent USB 2.0 performance
- Good USB 3.0 performance
- Study construction
- Choice between: single drives, JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1
- Separate blue access LEDs
- Well packaged
- Price premium over normal, USB 3.0 dual docks
- Performance can easily become the bottleneck in RAID 0
- Vibration transported to the table when two drives are in use
- RAID in a dual docking station may not be of great importance
First off, the Zalman MH200 U3 is very interesting docking station with the possibility to configure a RAID array. This sets the unit apart from the mass market but also carries a noticeable price premium. While I think this is a cool feature its usabilty can be questioned. If you want the most performance in combination with USB 3.0, then you could get a traditional dual-bay enclosure with RAID instead of resorting to the hard drive dock format. The unit costs an additional 15-20 Euro compared to devices which lack the RAID functionality, it is hard to say that ones' mind is blown - especially as the limits of the enclosure are quickly reached, where other formats of external RAID storage may deliver better numbers. If you want a Dual dock, I suggest you go ahead and grab yourself the Zalman MH200, which costs less and comes equipped with a card reader and USB port, but lacks the USB 3.0 functionality. That will most likely present a better feature set than the U3 version - unless you really, really need the RAID feature in this format. Then the Zalman MH200 U3 is the one of the few devices that fits your bill.