BACKGROUND: Every once in a while i would like to transfer data from one HD to another. I discovered the hard way, to *NEVER* have both of them as "local" drives if each of them has a bootable OS, as the paging file will be moves to the other drive - making boot from original HD impossible (cannot be restored and re-naming is useless as a "fix"). So, the solution is to have one drive "external" via USB. PROBLEM: So i buy an IDE<-->USB adapter or a SCSI/IDE<-->USB adapter which eventually dies, forcing me to get yet another one. Ever heard the electronic joke of the "fuse hopper"? Visited (or re-visited) in the form of this adapter! It looks like it "wants" to work, in that the yellow "busy" light flashes about every other second. But it a useless because the OS does not "see" the device; trying to cheat via Add/Remove hardware goes nowhere. KNOWNS: The USB port works (checked with digital camera and flash drive), cables OK (have 3 sets now, all "work" the same). Who makes a _RELIABLE_ adapter? Preferably one that lasts over a year (to reduce replacement costs)?
I have a Startech IDE enclosure I use. That has a USB interface on it. ******* The main problem with the 3-in-1 adapter kits (no enclosure), is bad power adapters. Check the Newegg reviews for a brand which won't blow out on you. The 3-in-1 kit has 3.5" IDE, 2.5" IDE, and SATA interface. The power adapter is needed to run a 3.5" drive. The adapter might be 12V @ 1.7A or more, and is regulated down to make 5V when needed. They don't do the dual adapter with four pin mini-DIN power any more. That's no longer common. Paul
Went to Amazon and got the first adapter listed, the StarTech USB2SATAIDE and am returning it; for $27 it should have had a decent supply which sagged to about 3.5V when the HD was turned on. Granted the voltage did come up but only to 4.8V (+12V always OK). I think the converter pod would do the job with decent supplies all around, but why fiddle around with a brand-new device? What is the model number of your adapter?
This is my enclosure. It's no longer made but might still be for sale somewhere. It's 5.25", not 3.5", and it doesn't have all the hole patterns on it either. It only has holes for 5.25" drives (IDE optical). But I've placed 3.5" drives in it temporarily, for backups and such. The Molex power connector is a weakness on the thing, and it's not a good quality Molex. So if something were to break on it, I'd probably end up soldering another internal power cable onto it. Otherwise, it's been a good enclosure. I never bother to put the outer package on it, just leaving the drive sitting in it open. http://www.startech.com/InfoSafe-Portable-525-USB-20-IDE-Drive-Case~IDECASE525U2 I think they made a SATA version of that one later, which wasn't quite as good. Paul
480Gbits/sec?? methinks someone goofed on that spec. So, tried your suggestion via NewEgg. Top rating was the Rosewill RX234 Aluminum & plastic 2.5" IDE to USB 2.0 External Enclosure. No AC adapter, states "USB powered device, no external power supply needed". The USB line can take an amp or so for HD startup? And what about the 12V? Well, at $12 i can afford to trash it when NewEgg refuses to honor their "warrantee" (which they did to me in the past on some hard drives i bought from them).
2.5" enclosures don't come with a power source. A 2.5" drive is powered from the 5V bus power on USB. Many drives, if you can find a spec, the spinup current is 5V @ 1A. The USB bus is fuse protected, with a Polyfuse. But, it isn't fused at exactly 500mA, per spec. It's fused at a higher current value. Which is why some percentage of people will get the 2.5" drive to work with only one USB cable attached. The 2.5" enclosures also come with a barrel connector for additional power. In some cases, the intention is to connect a second USB cable, with USB on one end, and the male barrel connector on the other end. If connecting an adapter to that hole, the enclosure would need a mechanism for disconnecting bus power from the drive. And that may not actually be present. So electrically, 2.5" enclosures are tricky. In fact, just about everything to do with drives now, has some kind of caveat. And I think "trash" is a good general term. I bought a network card the other day. My local computer store, on its website, shows a DLink card with a Marvell PCI ethernet chip on it. In a picture. Get the card home, it's got the same defective Realtek chip as I already own (the chip that won't run at full link rate). More trash. It's because these companies change the design, without changing the model number/SKU/UPC, that they get away with this shit. It certainly violates any notion of "truth in advertising". Paul
Well, some hard drives NEED the +12V and i dare say the USB +5 is not up-converted. And i am not about to stress some theoretical polyfuse on the motherboard, and refuse to stress an un-findable fuse on the motherboard. "ALL POWER" from the USB is an extremely bad design to say the least in this app. I will rat out the converter pod part and DIY all else! * I have a RealTek 10/100 Ethernet NIC card with drivers that works, and Windoze in its infinite whizdumb always reports 100.0Mbps without regard to actual data rate.* Data rate reporting by Windoze even for modems (remember dial-up?) has almost always been a high value like 56K when real rate was 48.8K or lower. For some reason it was a bitch to get the reporting rate to be the _actual_ rate, and i have long since forgotten the trick. Wouldn't it be nice if the reported rate was the actual rate? In any event, i will send it to you if you are interested. *Just tried Comcast to Seattle (am here in Lacey), download runs 29Mbps average, 36Mbps peak and upload runs 5.9Mbps average; i am paying for the lowest possible tier.
On 1/12/2014 4:31 PM, Robert Baer wrote: The 2.5" drives run from 5V. Around 5V 1Amp max. Once the drive spins up, the current drops to 5V @ 200mA or less. The 3.5" drives use 5V @ 1A steady, and the 12V drives the motor. The motor draws 2.5 amps to 3 amps for the first ten seconds. The high current is used to spin up the drive quickly. While the BIOS will wait up to 35 seconds, the drives strive to do better than that. The 12V drops to maybe 0.6Amp or less, at idle (spinning). Mine is a GbE card, for better transfer rates inside the house. I move backup images via GbE. And the faster that goes the better. The RealTek chip is not helping matters, doing 60MB/sec to 70MB/sec, when other brands of chips can do more than 100MB/sec. That's why I don't want that particular RealTek. It's always the crappy designs, that stick around to the bitter end. I'm sure Marvell stopped making their nice 88E8001 by now. I have one of those on my old AthlonXP board, and it was problem free (only one bad driver ever seen). I can only dream of such rates here. Not in my lifetime... My usable rate, means I download big files from the Internet, at a solid 312KB/sec. Wow. Paul
