StarTech has always had a rather large line of external USB and eSATA HDD docks, but up until now most have been limited to SATA connectivity. Now they have released a dock that’s able to connect to IDE hard drives as well! It pulls off this trick by including a short IDE ribbon cable that can connect to the back of the unit (see pic below).
The verbiage straight from StarTech: StarTech.com’s new USB 3.0 to SATA/IDE HDD Docking Station (UNIDOCK3U) offers two top-slot drive bays, enabling IDE and SATA hard drives to be inserted vertically into the dock. This minimal footprint design helps reduce desktop/workspace clutter, while offering a simple solution for transferring data from an older IDE hard drive to a newer SATA drive.
Is it limited to 2.5in
Is it limited to 2.5in drives?
That particular ide cable is specific to laptop ide drives…
http://www.startech.com/HDD/D
http://www.startech.com/HDD/Docking/~UNIDOCK3U
It works on full size IDE drives (that was my first question, too), but it’s also $100, which is right at my “I’ll just grab an old system and run it out of the case and use a Linux live CD and LAN to transfer data” price.
Why didn’t they incorporate
Why didn’t they incorporate the IDE connection into the base? Them ribbon cables look damn ugly sticking out.
I bet they tried, but maybe
I bet they tried, but maybe it was difficult to connect?
There’s too much of a chance
There’s too much of a chance that the average user will bend the pins on the drive when they insert it.
60$ is a bit pricey for this,
60$ is a bit pricey for this, there is usb to sata/ide options on newegg for 15-20$ that do exact same thing that do 5.25/3.5/2.5inch IDE drives and SATA.
https://pcper.com/comment/
https://pcper.com/comment/reply/54098?destination=node/54098