Useful gadget of the day

[sbisson]

I've just ordered one of these beasties to use with any spare SATA drives that I come across. You just drop in a SATA drive (it works with both 3.5" and 2.5" drives), and the drive's ready to test, or you can use it to quickly extract the data you're looking for...



Nice and cheap, too.

It does make me think of more than one TV crime show, though. You could just see Sebastian Stark or Brenda Leigh Johnson sanctioning the use of one to get the data they need to put away the bad guys. And I'm sure Garcia has one or two of them in her office in Quantico...

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw Maplin's selling these for £25 a few months back ... so provided scan's postage is reasonable, that's a good price ...

... sadly I have precisely ONE working SATA drive, and it's in a Buffalo external housing, so it would currently have no use for *me* ... I still need to get a SATA card for one of my PCs so that I can pick up some more cheap storage.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Those look quite good but don't currently have any SATA drives - have you seen these?

http://svp.co.uk/product/tsunami_datastation_ii_dual_35_hdd_enclosure_55576

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I think that I'll order one of those on Monday.

[nerdware.livejournal.com]

I've been lusting after the Thermaltake BlacX HDD Docking Station.

[mindygoth.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, me likey that idea - must pursuade work I need one :-)

[ccomley.livejournal.com]

Can you boot from it? Can you format a drive in it as bootable?

Cute idea.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

It's a USB drive at the end of the day - just a naked one!

[natalief.livejournal.com]

Does that work with 'doze and mac drives? *nix? /me goes to read the link...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Should do, it's just a USB adapter!

[neilf.livejournal.com]

Now finding a version that supported IDE drives would be really useful, because a lot of what we have to do at work is get data off old IDE drives on to machines only fitted with SATA. This would be a tad more convenient than keeping anold enclosure lying around.

As it is, having one of these would be mucho useful. Something to order when the bosses get back from hols.

- Neil.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of low cost IDE to USB adapters available - I have one that just plugs in to a naked drive much like this SATA one. I think it cost me £20 or so from Maplin. If you find an IDE to SATA adapter that also handled SATA power you could probably use it as an adapter to the box in this post...