T510 on the Mini Dock USB 3.0

[Gaming Vet]

Hi I am going to be buying a Thinkpad for university but would like one with USB 3.0 for my external HDD. If I put a T510 on a USB 3.0 dock would the USB3.0 on the dock function fully at the correct speeds?
Thanks

[jayton4]

Bad news. The USB 3.0 port on the Mini Dock with USB 3.0 is controlled by the Intel chipset of the PC. With a T510, that port on the Mini Dock will still function, however it will function as a USB 2.0 port. Even a T420s, which has a built-in USB 3.0 port, will still only see the port on the Mini Dock as USB 2.0, since it uses a Renesas controller instead of Intel. USB 3.0 became a standard feature of Intel's Ivy Bridge based Series 7 chipsets.

[Gaming Vet]

That's a shame I wanted it for using an external HDD to watch movies off and have an SSD in the laptop. The T510 were a bit cheaper than others (I have no money because of Uni) so thought it might be a good way around it I'd still buy a dock though.

[jayton4]

USB 2.0 is plenty fast for watching movies. I have dealt with USB 2.0 external hard drives for 10 years or more. It's not so bad.

Other options are dropping the HDD in UltraBay or using eSATA.