CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter Supports 2.5-Inch, 3.5-Inch, 5.25-Inch Hard Disk Drives (Black)

I ran two TRANSFER TESTS using my five-year-old PC Seagate Barracuda 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (I threw away the PC today finally). I "plugged in" the hard drive using this product to my Dell Inspiron 1545 running Win 7 Ultimate x64, Dual Core T4400 @ 2.2GHz, 3gb RAM. Test 1: 3gb from laptop to hard drive: 3mins. Speed: 20-22MB/s. 3gb from hard drive to laptop: 2:10mins. Speed: 22MB/s-26MB/s. Test 2: 3gb from laptop to hard drive: 2:38mins. speed: 21MB/s-24MB/s. 3gb from hard drive to laptop: 2:10mins. Speed 22Mb/s-26mb/S. Things to know about this awesome product: 1) The adapter comes with an ON/OFF switch. This is really nice because it allows you to leave the hard drive connected to your other computer but you can choose to leave it ON or OFF!! 2) Remember to always use the built-in feature of your OS to eject/unmount the hard drive before physically disconnecting it. This will prevent anything bad from happening. 3) In my case, it was "plug & play." Super easy. Took me 1-2 minutes. I didn't have to do anything whatsoever besides connecting the cables. My computer immediately detected it and I was able to immediately access my files. 4) This looks like a very SAFE device to use. I checked other products on Amazon and some people said their drives got fried. This product let me tell you it looks and feels very safe. The way everything is connected. Very happy with this! If your hard drive gets too hot then get a big fan and give it air or just stop using it for a few minutes. I highly recommend this product. UPDATE 6/21/12: I'm still extremely satisfied with this product. I use it a lot with my two super old SATA hdd and IDE hdd. Transfer speeds are great and I feel very safe with I connect my HDDs to this device. I still love the ON/OFF switch because after I eject an HDD (using windows) I can turn the hdd off and leave it plugged in, so if I want to use it again I just have to turn the switch ON and windows will recognize it again. Very neat!

I've been looking at these USB to everything drive adapters for quite a while now, and I finally decided to get one. Wow, this thing rocks! I should have got one years ago! So easy to use, and so useful. In the past I'd just disassemble one of my external drives to use the interface, but this is so much easier. Only had it a few days, but so far I've used to to dump data from old "spare" hard drives and to install Linux on my new Acer Netbook (just grabbed an old DVD drive I had in the closet and hooked it up. The Netbook booted from the drive and installed Linux with no trouble). I've also tested it with a new Blu-ray/DVD burner combo drive using the SATA interface. The Netbook was also able to boot from that drive and burn discs perfectly. Obviously this is not a solution for permanent installations. This is for "techy" types who have the need to hook up a variety of different drives temporarily to format, recover data, secure erase, remove viruses, etc... This Vantec unit has 2 major parts. The interface itself, which has a standard desktop 3.5/5.25 EIDE/PATA interface, the smaller interface used by EIDE/PATA notebook drives, and a standard SATA data connector (SATA data cable included). The 2nd piece is the power "brick" which (conveniently) uses a regular computer type AC cord and has the standard 4-pin Molex power plug with a SATA power adapter. The interface has an attached USB cable that is just under 3 feet long (34 inches), which seems just about right. Long enough to reach the back of a computer if needed, but not so long that you're tripping over it when you don't need the length. All in all I'm very happy with my purchase. The device works great, and Amazon's price and shipping were awesome, as always!

After having had a horrible experience with one of the cheaper versions of this type of gizmo, I was hesitant about purchasing another. Fortunately, this produce had better reviews, but cost about $8 more than the previous one. I must say, the price difference was definitely worth it. I was in the process of scrapping an old computer that had a couple of 3.5" IDE drives in it (120 gb and 40 gb). I knew there were some old photos and whatnot on them, but wanted to make sure I could transfer everything possible. With the Vantec IDE to USB Adapter...everything was a breeze. Connection was easy with instructions for EXTERNAL DRIVE use (see pg. 7 of manual). Immediately upon connection, the drive showed up in my COMPUTER list, clicked on it, and everything I needed was there. Simple drag-and-drop of the items I wanted into a created folder on my new computer made the process seamless and easy. Transfer rate was far faster than I would have expected, and without a single glitch/hitch. Followed the same process for a couple of other drives. All went as planned and without issue. What's also nice is the ability to use the same system to format and wipe the drive (if desired). Since I plan on selling the used drives, I wanted to make sure they were cleaned thoroughly. Drive-wipe software recognized the drive(s), and wiped drive clean. Once again, simply flawless. I would definitely recommend this unit to anyone attempting to access an old IDE or SATA drive (3.5" or 2.5") in order to recover old files (documents, photos, etc.). Setup and connection is a breeze!

I bought this to use on my 3.5" drive, but I wasnt able to use it. One - the power output was too high for my 2TB WD Caviar Green drive and so smoke started appearing from the HDD while using it. I dont know if I damaged by HDD yet, but the lack of power control is a serious issue with this. MOdern HDD's are quite efficient, so utility of this is questionable without power control. The cables are also delicate to touch and need to be handled very carefully. Overall, not an easy experience and not what was expected.

With all this stay at home down time it was finally time to go through every single one of my old hard drives before they were finally cleared out and sent for recycling. This included drives of every sort and type dating back twenty years ago, on both desktop and laptop. Pretty excited to see what what turn up, but ultimately was disappointed by the results. First off, great product in a sense of idea. Before these were out, and part of the reason they sat for so long, you had to take each one and plug it into a main computer and work from there. This treats it more or less like a plug and play usb, with the exception of being careful to turn on certain things in order. At the end of the day, out of seven drives I tried only four worked. I tried again on a friend's unit and he was able to read six of them so one was presumumbly done for. Weird thing though, I gave it another round and this time five units worked with a earlier working unit only being able to intermittently read. So all in all, very inconsistent which is too bad because it's a great tool when it worked.

I purchased this adapter so that I could connect a failing hard drive to my older computer in order to transfer all the data off. During the transfer, even though I had touched nothing, the drive would suddenly disappear, like it had been disconnected from my computer. I would then disconnect everything and reconnect it, assuming that some part was loose. Sometimes, even after all of that, the drive would still not show up as being connected for a few minutes. And after the transfer resumed, the drive would inevitably randomly disappear again. A few years ago, my dad purchased the same product and it worked well for him. So, I asked to borrow his older Vantec SATA to USB 2.0 adapter. I was shocked at how flimsy the new adapter felt compared to the older adapter. I hooked up the failing hard drive to my older computer with the older adapter and it worked just fine; the drive never randomly disappeared from my computer when it was connected with the older adapter.

Had to pick this unit up to transfer some old hard drive data to newer, modern drives. Even helped some people out in recovering data from laptop drives, where the drive was fine, but the laptops suffered various board/power failures. As others have mentioned, this thing works in a pinch. Does what it's meant to do, no fuss, no fluff. Did not experience issues with drive detection or interruptions in transfers. The whole power brick is a bit inconvenient, but it's nothing to raise a real complaint about. I didn't expect a fantastic price, but it was fair considering I had no headaches using the unit.

When I ordered this product, it was because I had to recover documents, music, etc from a hard drive from my old vista machine, which had gone RIP due to blown capacitors on the motherboard. When I plugged it in, it worked like a charm, no installs needed. It treats the HD as if the drive is in the computer as well. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a working HD and needs info from it, because it will definitely work well. I work in IT, and it's saved my butt on almost every drive on which I've tried it. Pros: No software installs needed, easy to set up Con: The only thing I'd change on this product would be to make the SATA cable longer, but that's just a minor quibble.