Hands on: Use this dock to instantly attach any hard drive

Copying data from one internal hard drive to another can be a complicated proposition: At best it means putting a bare drive into a USB enclosure and connecting it temporarily to your PC. At worst it can involve cracking open your computer case and connecting it to the cables within, an ugly and perilous project for many novice computer users.

I'm now going to show you the outright easiest way to attach an internal hard drive to your PC, thanks to the rather clumsily named Unitek SATA HDD Docking Station Combo Stereo Speaker + Hub Y-1060S, which I've had the fortune to have on my desk all week.

The picture speaks a thousand words: This is a USB hub that also has a port to which you can also attach any SATA hard drive, either a desktop-sized 3.5-inch drive or a laptop-class 2.5-inch model. The hub requires a USB connection and AC power (and a speaker connection if you plan to use the analog audio capabilities), and that's it. Once Windows has automatically installed the drivers, you're good to go.

The two USB ports in the front are fine for thumbdrives, but it's the big dock up top that really makes the Docking Station interesting. Yes, it really is as easy as it looks: Just pop a hard drive into the slot and make sure it's snug with the connector, and you can access it via Windows just like it was installed on your PC normally, whether internally or via USB. Drives are fully hot-swappable. Just yank one drive out and sub in a new one as you see fit, no rebooting required.

My only complaint: The USB cable is a whopping two feet long, which seriously limits where you can put the device unless you bring your own connector. And what I'd really kill for is this same product with an additional connector for IDE/ATA drives: Half the time I need to access a bare hard drive it's been removed from some an older model machine and the owner is just hoping to salvage data off of it. The manual is also, as you'd expect, a rocky translation.

I didn't test the audio features of the Y-1060S but it includes USB audio and also has volume and mute buttons, plus a microphone input. $59 is not a bad price for the product, to be honest -- and even though the only place I know of that's selling the device is in Hong Kong, shipping from Brando is only 3 bucks. Every computer technician (professional or hobbyist) should snag one.