Get APLawrence.com by RSS(OLDER) <- More Stuff -> (NEWER) (NEWEST)
Home > Miscellaneous > Granite USB to SATA/IDE Adapter
Printer Friendly Version
Granite Digital USB to SATA/IDE Adapter
While this is definitely NOT the way you want to run an external drive for any length of time, it is sometimes very handy to have quick access to a bare drive that you just tore out of something and that isn't going to have a permanent home again. This can be for recovery, file transfer, or just sanity checking: if you are a tech, you want to be able to do this:
The device connecting that naked 2.5" hard drive to my MacBook's USB port is Granite Digital's USB 2.0 to SATA / IDE Bridge Adapter (Tux is standing guard becaause that's a Linux drive and he doesn't like it being connected to the Mac). The whole kit, with power supply and adapters is just $39.95
As I noted above, this is for techies in the field. If you want to hook up something permanently, you need a real enclosure (and Granite Digital sells these also). This is for temporary use.
While the kit comes with every adaptor you are going to need, some things just don't work well.. for example if you need to extend the power with the auxiliary power cable, you may find that the SATA/IDE adapter interferes with its ears. Better to use the included power supply which has no ears and will fit nicely (note the 2.5 inch drive shown in the picture above draws power from the USB bus).
Also, just because you can hook up something doesn't mean your OS knows how to read it. And if it can read the device itself, it has to have support for the filesystem that's on there. That's not necessarily insurmountable, but you do need to be aware of it. For example, my Mac would not recognize an IDE DVD-RAM drive I hooked up. Nor does it understand Linux filesystems; when I plugged in this Linux drive, the Mac offered to initialize it. I probably could have mounted it with a Parallels Linux VM though.
You can buy similar devices all over the Web. See Brando Hooks Up (S)ATA Drives To USB 2.0 at Tom's Hardware, for example. Some of the devices you find are strictly IDE, some are strictly SATA. I like Granite Digital because they have a wide range of high quality products and very helpful and very technically knowledgeable staff. These folks know their stuff - I highly recommend them (and no I don't get anything out of this except that once in a while they send me something to review - but I was buying their products and recommending them long before they ever sent a thing). They also have a techy newsletter (and text and pdf versions of older mailings) you can sign up for at The Granite Digital Storage Pro Newsletter. Check it out, you won't be sorry.
If this page was useful to you, please click to help others find it: Your +1's can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.
Inexpensive and informative Apple related e-books:
Take Control of Mail on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, Third Edition
Sharing Files in Leopard
Syncing Data in Leopard
Exploring & Customizing Snow Leopard
Sharing Files in Panther (Leopard version also available)
More Articles by Anthony Lawrence - Find me on Google+
Have you tried Searching this site?
Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates
This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.
Many of the products and books I review are things I purchased for my own use. Some were given to me specifically for the purpose of reviewing them. I resell or can earn commissions from the sale of some of these items. Links within these pages may be affiliate links that pay me for referring you to them. That's mostly insignificant amounts of money; whenever it is not I have made my relationship plain. I also may own stock in companies mentioned here. If you have any question, please do feel free to contact me.
Specific links that take you to pages that allow you to purchase the item I reviewed are very likely to pay me a commission. Many of the books I review were given to me by the publishers specifically for the purpose of writing a review. These gifts and referral fees do not affect my opinions; I often give bad reviews anyway.
We use Google third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
Buy Kerio from a dealer who knows tech: I sell and support
Kerio Connect Mail server, Control, Workspace and Operator licenses and subscription renewals
Click here to add your comments
Tue Dec 5 20:55:02 2006: TonyLawrence
Frank from Granite Digital added this:
"Another use is that this is an easy way to buy a
bigger drive, copy your data from your boot drive, and then install it
into your computer...."
Good point..
Fri Nov 13 00:03:37 2009: anonymous
http://JoelRugullies@yahoo.com
Hi!! I have a usb to ide/sata adapter that I would like to use with linux Fedora but the external hard drive connected to the adapter doesn't show up in linux as a drive. Anyone have any help with this?
Fri Nov 13 03:13:40 2009: TonyLawrence
You sure? You'd be looking for a usb drive.
Fri Nov 13 14:38:13 2009: JoelRugullies
http://JoelRugullies@yahoo.com
Ya..it picks up a SATA drive connected to the adapter but not an IDE..does yours pick up IDE? Maybe it's the manufacturer of my adapter.
Fri Nov 13 14:42:50 2009: TonyLawrence
The drive in the picture was IDE - but this was OS X, not Linux (Linux on the IDE, but accessing it through OS X in this case).
Don't miss responses! Subscribe to Comments by RSS or by Email
Click here to add your comments
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a Gravatar