This is a very useful device for anyone with a bit of experience tinkering under the hood of a computer. The package includes:
- the actual adapter itself, which provides an USB connection to 3 different types of hard drive connectors -- 5.25" / 3.5" IDE, 2.5" IDE, and SATA.
- an IDE (4-pin MOLEX) power adapter.
- one SATA-to-SATA data cable.
- one IDE (4-pin MOLEX) power to SATA power adapter.
- a mini-CD containing a manual and drivers. It is not necessary to install drivers in Windows ME / 2000/ XP and above systems.
Both the SATA/IDE-to-USB and power adapter cables are reasonably lengthy; 3' for the former, maybe 5.5' for the latter.
Vantec's SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter provides an easy way to access a hard drive without needing to install it into a computer. It also works great for extracting data from old computers without having to figure out how to turn them on -- all you have to do is take out the hard drive. Vantec CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter Supports 2.5-Inch, 3.5-Inch, 5.25-Inch Hard Disk Drives (Black)
I bought two devices of this kind, one is this Vantec USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE adapter and the other one is Bytecc, which is a little less cumbersome to use.
A device like this is a must-have for techies and pros who work with multiple hard disk drives and frequently need to quickly connect an external drive to a PC, regardless whether it's 2.5 or 3.5", SATA or IDE.
When I was buying the first one, I chose the box which weighted less, and apparently that was not a relevant reason, but coincidentaly I made a good choice.
Disadvantages of this device compared to Bytecc's one:
- More parts to carry with, more complex connection
- Needs a manual, which is, although mostly decent technical writing, printed in four pages per one printout without any collating or order
- The power connector (provides the same connection as the standard IDE drive type of power connector usually found inside of PCs) is connected to the power supply with a very do-it-yourself style cable which works but it's rugged with cables sticking out of it and it doesn't have the finish or an appeal of a good quality product.
- It needs several different power cables/adapters and it's easy to lose some
Advantages:
- Unlike the power connectors, the data part/connector looks a bit more sturdy/compact compared to Bytecc
- The SATA drive data connection is done via a regular SATA data cable, so it would work with any SATA drives with non-standard distance between the power and data connector (I haven't seen any like that yet and I've worked with both 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives).
The USB and AC power supply cables on both devices are too short and could be at least 3' longer.
You may want to read my review of bytecc adapter like this which gives more details how this concept works.
Bottomline: Good product, mostly for techies, my experience with Bytecc one is better
I bought this product to copy drive images from older systems to some new 500GB internal drives that I purchased for this purpose. I had some serious problems with copying the images to the drives (through the dongle), with it typically bombing out around 40MB on USB 1.1 systems and around 500MB on USB 2.0 systems. After messing around with it for a few hours (and discovering that smaller files worked just fine), I began to get the feeling that it was a faulty product. After trying another Vantec with the same results, I returned it and bought the very similar product from Bytecc. While I agree with another reviewer that the connectors are better on the Vantec, the Bytecc product actually worked with my multi-GB files, which is kinda the point. Score: Bytecc - 1; Vantec - 0...
Love this tool! I have used it with my MacBook Pro, my G5 iMac, my wife's Gateway laptop and a Dell desktop.
You can attach any device, CD-ROM, SATA or IDE Hard Drive and they just show up on the desktop with no drivers required.
Should be in any serious geeks toolkit.
I needed to make a backup from a laptop ibm hard drive, an IDE desktop hardrive and a sata desktop hard drive.
All three worked as it should.
word of caution: when conecting the desktop drives to the reader, first conect the drive (sata or ide) to reader and to the provided power supply, after the drive is powered on, then you can conect to the USB port, that way you will not have problems to recognize the drive.
I recently had a WinXP machine die, and needed to transfer the hard drives to my new Vista computer. I also had a couple of hard drives left over from a Win98 machine from another computer that died 5 years ago. I was able to transfer all four drives with no problems whatsoever. I'd seen in another review, that someone was having problems with large files. I had a couple files as big as 20GB, and had no problems. Best $28 I've spent in a while (the place where I bought my computer wanted to charge $85 per drive to do the transfer). - Ide - Ide Adapter - Usb To Sata - Usb To Ide'
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