Why are you also considering docking stations?
Not typically something that you use for portability, unless you have one at each location where you access the drives and you're willing to carry bare hard drives around.
Generally all around good tool to have for cloning laptop drives (to an SSD, for instance), backing up a bare disk, secure erase or "scrubbing" a drive to DOD MIL spec. Testing a bare disk on the fly with something like WD Disk Diagnostic, the Seatools or some such program.
But here's what I would do, and Carson is probably solidly in the ball-park with his observations.
I think USB 3 adapters can be backwardly compatible to use with a USB2 controller, so look for that.
For computers without either auxiliary "feature" controller like the Asmedia USB3 controller or something native to the mobo, the Hoo-Too PC . . 002 adapter has two external ports, a Molex port for extra power from the PSU, and a 20/19-pin port for a connector/splitter with two individual female "A" USB ports. It was about $19 at the Egg this week, or look again. Silverstone has an entry that could be more recent than the Hoo-Too, because I hadn't seen it at the Egg when I bought my own Hoo-Too. These are PCI_E x1 cards. The Silverstone has a higher price and seems more compact, so it could fit in the PCI-E x1 close to a video card -- if the latter provides exposure to the slot. Or it would make a good fit in the PCI-E x1 slot northwest of the gfx card center, because less likely to interfere with a heatpipe cooler of most any size.
Then I'd look for even a possibility that I could convert IDE-to-USB2 external drives to IDE/USB3, or SATA-to-USB2/USB3 if you get the picture. IDE should be your lowest priority and possibly even a "not wanted" item, but . . . jus' sayin' . . .
It may be that Vantec makes good external boxes, and I'm not sure I had one. I think I did, but companies can get either better or worse, although experience in years tends to lean toward better.
I bought six Thermaltake "Silver-River" aluminum boxes-- can't remember the model-code -- over a period of years and several years back. Since they're all the same, I just pack away most of the power-bricks and wires as spares, and move the power and signal cables from one to the other. These were IDE to USB2.
I discovered by just removing the IDE-to-USB interface PCB and leaving the power PCB alone, I could convert an IDE-to-USB into an eSATA external box, cannibalizing your typical two-port PCI eSATA plate and cables to your motherboard controller. These are usually bundled with motherboards, and I'd never had a need for them other than this sort of DIY mod project.
YOu can harvest an SATA-to-ESATA molded plug, screws and wire assembly, cut a larger data-port in the back of the old box and drilling holes for the screws.
Those enclosures had gray vented plastic side pieces that clipped onto a bottom and top aluminum half of the enclosure. You could pop them off with your fingers to open the box, which is very sturdy as a complete assembly.
And the boxes were big enough that you could put a regular-sized optical drive into one and convert it to bootable USB.
I'm not getting rid of these Silver River boxes anytime soon. No, sir. I'd like to think there should be a way to refit them as USB3, but eSATA is good enough. Anyway, I can run the original USB2 configuration into a USB3 computer "A" port.
