Maximum PC

My job requires me to sometimes duplicate a customers hard drive due to a variety of reasons, usually drive replacement. sometimes its a laptop drive sometimes its an internal desktop drive, usually SATA 2.5 or 3.5 formats. Typically its a hard drive that is dying that needs to be replaced. Normally I make a copy of the drive using acronis true image home software to make a copy of the drive onto the new one, using an external usb SATA adapter. It works, but I want to streamline the process a little bit maybe, what do you think about those dual hard drive docking stations? Would having one of those make sense in my situation? Would I still need to use some sort of software like acronis true image? Or would you recommend using something else?

heres the link to the dual docking station I am looking at:

Thermaltake BlacX Duet (ST0014U) ABS Plastic 2.5" & 3.5" Black USB2.0 & eSATA Dual Hard Drives Docking Station

They're tits! Remember you have to plug in an AC adapter too.

Hell yes!

Yup.

Nope Acronis or Macrium Reflect are the two fastest, smartest I'd use. I'd have Hiren's standing by so I could boot testdisk (kudos LatiosXT). And SystemRescueCD for dd_rescue in case I had serious drive failure issues---though I would want the failing drive on a dual HDD (one boot/one target) testbed so I was directly plugged into up to date SATA controllers for quickest stable maybe one shot transfer.

That's a good one! Though I think I would want one with a USB3 interface. Note, clients with IDE drives will need something else.

Actually... Parted Magic is probably the best thing since sliced bread if you need tools regarding hard drives. It comes with everything: complete erase, checking for problems, cloning, etc.

At least, I would like to say that, I haven't had much luck with it. But that's just me. I'd still burn a live CD anyway.

Otherwise other tools I came across were EaseUS Disk Copy and MiniTool Partition Wizard.