Basically, that means you can enjoy plug-and-play access to match your level of performance. It is also completely hot-swappable, so users can change drives while their computer is already running. At $100, it seems like a pretty decent buy—but if you can do without Firewire, a USB + eSATA Brando HDD dock with 4 card reader ports can be had for $79.

NEWERTECH ANNOUNCES VOYAGER –

WORLD’S FIRST “QUAD INTERFACE” SATA HARD DRIVE

DOCKING STATION

Turns Any 2.5" or 3.5" SATA I/II Hard Drive up to 2.0TB into an External Drive

Mac & PC Plug and Play Ready - Boot and Swap Drives

December 2, 2008, Woodstock, IL — Newer Technology, Inc. (NewerTech®) http://www.newertech.com, the leading developer of PC, Macintosh®, iPod®, and iPhone® performance upgrades and accessories, today announced NewerTech Voyager, the world’s first “Quad Interface” SATA I/II Hard Drive Docking Station with support for four interfaces: FireWire® 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA. NewerTech Voyager turns any 2.5" or 3.5" Serial ATA (SATA) I/II hard drive up to 2.0TB into a fully bootable and hot-swappable external drive solution.

Easy & Convenient To Use

Using Voyager is so simple: just insert any standard 2.5" or 3.5" SATA I/II hard drive (up to 2.0TB) into Voyager’s compact docking base and select the fastest of the four interfaces supported by your computer for read/write data speeds of up to 3.0Gb/s. There’s nothing else to install or configure. Voyager saves users the time and inconvenience of installing a hard drive into a computer or using an external hard drive enclosure with limited interfaces and slower speeds.

Plug and Play Hot-Swap Ready

With the most interfaces available on the market, Voyager provides Plug and Play ease of use for a fast external hard drive solution that works with both Macs and PCs. In fact, Voyager is so easy to use, that combined with today’s low cost of hard drive storage, users can think of a bare SATA I/II drive as being as convenient to use as a flash memory card, with the same instant access benefits and the addition of huge storage capacity gains. In addition, Voyager is completely hot-swappable for consumers wanting to move multiple drives at will while their computer is on and running. Its unique design and drive eject button makes inserting, using, and removing SATA I/II hard drives a safe and effortless procedure.

Ideal Solution for Storage Archives

The ideal solution for storage archives, professional photographers, videographers, and other hard drive storage archivers will no longer need multiple drive enclosures and power supplies for every archived hard drive. “Whether consumers want to re-task an older swapped-out hard drive, need to access multiple drives, or want to add big capacity, low cost external storage capacity to their desktop, Voyager is able to travel any computer user’s data universe needs with ease,” said Grant Dahlke, NewerTech’s Product Manager. “Its design and ‘Quad Interface’ functionality offer high speed ‘slide and swap’ hard drive read/write performance and convenience never before available.”

NewerTech Voyager Features:

• Supports all 2.5" and 3.5" SATA I/II hard drives up to 2.0TB

• "Quad Interface" for maximum system compatibility and data transfer rates

• Data transfer rates up to 3.0Gb/s (300MB/s)

• Push button drive eject for safe hard drive removal

• Hot-Swap functionality for fast access of multiple hard drives

• Weighted base and non skid rubber feet for stable operation

• 2-Color Status LED: left side blue for power on, right side flashing red for disk activity

• Compact design: measures 5.28" x 3.70" x 2.68" inches and weighs 1.35lbs without drive

• Whisper Quiet operation - no cooling fan needed

• Plug and Play with Macs and PCs

• All interface connection cables included

• RoHS Compliant

• One year warranty

NewerTech Voyager is priced at $99.95 MSRP and is available immediately from NewerTech’s exclusive distributor, Other World Computing (OWC®), at www.macsales.com, as well as through the retail channel. Voyager includes all its supported interface connector cables and an auto-switching power supply for worldwide compatibility.

[Newertech]

A headphone jack extender ($7.99), a microphone extender cable ($14.99), an auto charger ($12.99), and a handsfree headset ($19.99.) The handsfree headset is a welcome addition, as the options for suitable alternatives are somewhat limited at present. [Product Page via Chip Chick]

The Verdict: Mediocre speeds (~6MB/s), quirky drive formatting, limited sharing options, and the mandatory use of their drive mounting utility means this is more suitable as a network drive to share smaller chunks of data rather than a device to use for moving around big files.

The Catch:

Only one computer can be in write mode, and it needs to be formatted as FAT32 for Macs and PCs to both be able to access it, which takes a big chunk out of your performance.

The Performance: Filling up that 750GB (about 699GB when formatted) when sending data at 6MB/s means you're going to be sitting there for quite a while. You mount the drive like a normal drive on your Windows and Mac using their drive utility application, which is usable but not great. Unfortunately you can only have one computer mounting the drive as read/write, and the other 19 have to mount as read-only.

Formatting the NAS was a pain as well. Vista could only format the drive as NTFS, and not FAT32, so I couldn't use it as a shared drive between Mac and Windows. After some back and forth with tech support, we finally installed a newer driver and got Vista to format FAT32—which turned out to be not a great idea, because FAT32 on large-sized drives is much slower compared to NTFS.

The NAS also occasionally randomly disconnects, and you'll have to reboot both the NAS and your computer in order to get them both to reconnect. Not something anyone really wants to do.

The Price: $119 for 80GB all the way up to $329 for 750GB

The Recommendation: Slow performance thanks to the non-Gigabit Ethernet means you don't want to use this as storage you access often (get another internal drive or a USB drive), but if you have a repository of music or files a lot of people need to access, this could be for you.

[Newertech]

The Verdict: Great build quality, fast charging, and overall convenience makes the price a non-factor when you need to charge multiple batteries simultaneously.

The Catch:

It actually charges only one battery at a time, but holds onto two so it can charge the second one in series after the first one's done.

The Performance: Charging took around the same time as a standard charge in our MacBook Pro (when not in use). Conditioning takes all night, but actually added a couple percentage points to our batteries (judged from CoconutBattery). If you put two drained batteries in when you go to sleep, they'll be done by the time you wake up.

The Price: $149 for all types of Mac laptops (MacBook, MacBook Pro 15/17, PowerBooks, iBooks)

The Recommendation: If you have the need to carry and use multiple batteries in the same day, pick up this charging station. If you've only got one battery, you can accomplish the conditioning yourself on your own laptop by carefully charging and draining your battery.

[Newertech]

The charger has two slots, one that chargers and conditions and the other just charges, and will work on both stock and aftermarket MacBook/MacBook Pro batteries. At a price of $149, it's not cheap, but definitely worth the price if you need it. – Jason Chen

Product Page [NewerTech]