Dual Sata USB Docking Station Problems

[daveydguk]

Hello.

After trying a second HD in an Akasa DuoDock X station I found that I could only access one HD drive at a time when plugged into the PCG03 USB port, either a 2TB WD, or 3TB Toshiba Drive.

When both HD's are inserted they appear in the device manager, but no drive letters are allocated in windows explorer.

On some occasions drive letters appear in windows explorer but I can't access them ?(Drive letters have been allocated as R:,S:,T: and Z: so no conflict.)

Initially the PCG03 went into some sort of loop trying to install the devices again and a again ?

The Docking station works fine on my Windows 7 PC with both drives under USB 2.0

I was wondering if either the USB port drivers/firmware are at fault, or the USB ports are slightly underpowered ?

I also notice that connecting the 2 Drives via docking station made the PCG03 hang at boot up aswell as restart/shutdown.

After attaching a powered USB hub, the PCG03 found all drives/Partitions and I could access them..

If the solution is to connect a powered USB hub, then ok. But it seems strange that 1 drive works, and the other doesnt together and than the docking station has its own power supply ??  e.g. possible communication problem with PCG03 USB ports ?

[futeko.com]

The PSU for the PCG03 is 1A, so running several unpowered USB HDDs will cause problems.

The solution is to use a powered hub if you want to use multiple drives.

An alternative solution might be to use a higher amperage PSU, but I'm not recommending that at the moment. It should be OK but I will check with Mele later in the week to see if they have a specified maximum amperage.

[daveydguk]