A Closer Look

The dock seems very sturdy and the "trap door" is spring loaded. The cut out is intended for 2.5 inch drives. Due to the SATA specifications, both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives have the exact same connectors so this dock can be used for both types. A LED on top of the device turns on as soon as the power has been switched on. This LED looks different, than the marketing images on the AXP website.


A simple label on the bottom of the drive holds a serial number and the model name. The connectors of the unit have been placed on the bottom rear of the dock. There is a switch so that you can turn the unit on/off without having to remove the power supply. Right next to that is the DC in, followed by the USB plug and the eSATA connector. The large blue LED lights up as soon as the unit is plugged in.


We also opened the dock up, to check what IC is behind the functionality. To do so, you have to remove the rubber feet of the unit. There are no adjustable parts within the unit, so there is really no reason for you to open the AXP dock. A metal plate acts as an additional weight to stabilize the unit. The initio IC carries the model name INIC-1611L. You will not find this particular model on the site, but a INIC-1610 is listed under SATA and USB connectivity. It has the following features:

• Integrates USB 2.0 PHY IP core.
• Data transfer rate of up to 60 MB/sec on USB side, 150 MB/sec on SATA side.
• Integrated internal Turbo 8051 uP with 16KB embedded SRAM.
• Program Flash In-Line (Firmware download mechanism, USB direct for MFG Test, write .bta file.
• Local Bus Interface to Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Flash Only.
• Support HID.
• Up to 9 GPIO pins.
• The option of using only one external crystal.
• Provide software utilities for downloading the upgraded firmware code under USB.
• Supports SATA (bridged SATA) Hard Disk drives, CD-RW devices, DVDs, Removable media devices
• USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 compliant.
• USB Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport Specification Compliant.
• SATA specification 1.0 (1.5 Gbps), SATA II and eSATA Compliant (Hot Plug is supported).
• Support SATA to SATA pass through.
• Supports SATA NCQ.
• Supports 3Gbps SATA host and 3Gbps SATA HDD connection to internal 1.5Gbps SATA Phy.
• Support ATA/ATAPI device DMA and PIO mode.
• 4k bytes of data buffer for data transfer.
• One SATA channel support.
• On-Chip 3.3V to 1.8V regulator.
• 64 pin LQFP