The Basics:

The front of the dock has the Dock Master name as well as the Kingwin logo. The Kingwin logo is used as a power and HDD usage indicator. When powered, the logo will glow blue and flicker with HDD usage/activity.



The back of the dock is very basic. It has the power button, power adapter connection, and the USB 3.0 cable connection. The USB 3.0 port is backwards compatible with a standard USB 2.0 cable. When hooking up a USB 2.0 cable to the USB 3.0 port on the back of the Dock Master, Windows Explorer notices this change and states: “This USB mass storage device can transfer information faster if you connect it to a Super-Speed USB 3.0 port”.



Another difference that was noticed is with the USB connection. The above right image shows the difference between the newer USB-B 3.0 style connection (left-hand blue cable) and the older, more familiar USB-B 2.0 connection (right-hand black cable).

The view from the top of the dock shows the SATA connections that will allow you to insert either a 2.5” or 3.5” hard drive.



As mentioned before, the Kingwin Dock Master is able to house either a 2.5" drive (below left image) or a 3.5" drive (below right image).



For comparison purposes I wanted to show the difference in size between the Kingwin Dock Master and the Thermaltake BlacX hard drive dock. As you can see by the images, the Kingwin is a bit bigger. Also the Kingwin does not have an “eject button” like the Thermaltake unit does. On the Kingwin, you just have to pull on the drive to disconnect it from the dock.