NewerTechnology's USB to hard drive adapter

I love to reuse old hard drives; any device that has one gets the hard drive removed before I toss the remainder in the trash. I've used enclosures in the past to turn an old laptop drive into a portable drive, but this USB 2.0 universal adapter cable from NewerTechnology looks pretty slick too. $24.95 gets you this USB adapter, which can connect directly to an ATA, Serial ATA, ATAPI or IDE drive. You simply plug and it plays, which could come in handy if you're on the road and need to salvage data off a drive from a dead device.

(via Mobility Site)

-kct

Comments

[DualDone]

hey wow, thats nice! i've been getting really sick of buying new cases (gets expensive after awhile). or reusing 1 case for multiple HD's is SUCH a pain because of having to take apart & rebuild. not sure how i ever missed this (i shop at newegg religiously) is this the only 1 of its kind?

[Nortern_Rebel]

I bit....will let you all know ow it works.

[Northern_Rebel]

Boy did that "H" key need cleaned. Crumbs under keys = very bad

;-)

[DualDone]

where did u find it at? i am looking at their reseller list but not having much luck.

[Sumocat]

I save my old hard drives too, which is why I bought an IDE to USB adapter on eBay several months ago for under $20 with shipping. Not double-sided but comes with a 2.5 adapter. Not sure about SATA/eIDE compatibility; my old drives are IDE.

[Northern_Rebel]

DualDone I just clicked through the website buy link.

[Sierra]

I love this idea! 3 minutes from see this to pressing Buy Now. They ought to give you a commission. :)

[John]

JK,

Thanks for the info.

A quick question for everyone: How do safely handle the hard drive to protect it from static schocks or other potential harm to the bare drive?

Thank you in advance,
John

[Northern_Rebel]

I got my adapter in the mail today so quick review.
I tryed a couple of laptop hard drives, a PC DVDROM,
and a PC hard drive. All worked fine. I don't have
any serial ATA devices to test with but all the
cabling is included. The included AC adapter for
powering your PC devices is small and light.

Guys will love this one... There are no directions!
I know everyting is plug and play but I would have
expected to see a warning telling you to connect
your external device before pluging in the USB
connector. Maybe there is a built in safety in the
connector but I'm not testing that out. No static
warnings either.

I'm going to need a small bag to keep everything
together. Product looks well put together and
functions as expected. Lack of documentation is a big
negative though. A small peice of paper or a few
inches of space on the box would help set my mind at
ease.

8 out of 10

NR

[SonSon]

on the newertech website it says it includes a Driver CD, but i didnt get 1, did anyone else?

[XL]

DO NOT BUT THIS! IT WILL RUIN YOUR DRIVE!

See http://www.macobserver.com/review/2007/02/20.1.shtml for details. There are other people at Macnn that have also had this problem.

[Tim]

The article said nothing about ruining your hard drive. What it did say was that on a couple models it didn't get enough power from the computers USB ports and recommended a powered USB hub. Perhaps if I tried using my hard drive as a Frisbee or Boomerang, or maybe a Pinata.....

[john Sawyer]

The article doesn't say anything about frying drives, but some comments appended to the article do, linking the problem to possibly being caused by the power supply issue that is mentioned in the article.

[John Sawyer]

Interesting that this web site wiped out the text of Tim's comment from Aug 29 2007, and replaced it with mine that I posted a short time ago today, and then posted a blank comment with my name appended.

[Eric]

Is there anything that goes the other way? Is it possible to use some of my flash drives as a hard drive?