Question about m1210 Dock

I'm looking to purchase a dock for my m1210 since I'll be bringing it to school and back home often.

After researching, I've found that there is no 'official' docking station for the m1210, and that the only solution is a USB dock. I have a few questions regarding USB docks:

1. I have an external HD which is connected through USB...so will the read/write speeds of the HD decrease alot since it's going through USB->USB->Laptop?

2. When unhooking the dock, do you have goto the whole 'Safely remove hardware' process...or can you just pull it out?

I've read the review of the Kensington Universal USB Dock that was posted on this forum...and it seems like a pretty good dock from the review. In the review it said the dock was ~$169.99. I know the review is over a year old...but I when I went on ebay...I saw these docks going for ~$20 shipped..which seems kind of cheap. Here is a link to one of them..I just want to make sure it's the same one that was in the review: http://cgi.ebay.ca/Kensington-USB-Laptop-Port-Expansion-Dock-K33239_W0QQitemZ140018380587QQihZ004QQcategoryZ3709QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

I think that's all the questions I have for now. Any help is appreciated

Thanks!

 

1. There may be a slight decrease in speed, but I don't think there should be a drastic one.

2. Windows has the USB ports automatically set to "hot swappable" so you can plug in and take out USB ports without having to "stop" them first. You can increase performance by setting XP to performance mode for your USB ports, but you have to remeber to stop them first before removing.

 

Thanks for the response.

So can anyone confirm whether the Dock that was reviewed on this forum is the same one on that ebay link I provided?

 

bump............