Details and Conclusions

A Closer Look at the Kingwin EZ-Clone

The EZ-Clone HDD/SSD adapter features three drive connectors, each one located on a different side of the device: two SATA and one IDE.
•    IDE Source – for connecting a 3.5” IDE drive (or 2.5” IDE with included adapter)
•    SATA1 Source – for connecting a 2.5” or 3.5” SATA drive
•    SATA2 Target – for connecting a second 2.5” or 3.5” SATA drive

3.5” IDE HDD attached to IDE Source

2.5” IDE Adapter attached to IDE Source

2.5” HDD and 2.5” SSD attached to SATA Source and SATA Target

Note: This is the configuration used to clone the data on the SATA HDD to a new, larger SATA SSD.

The fourth side contains a power Off-On switch, power connector, USB 3.0 port, and a 4-pin IDE power connector.

Note: The USB 3.0 connection is only needed when using the EZ-Clone as an external drive adapter.

The top of the EZ-Cole device contains a large blue Clone button in the center along with six LEDs across the top. The two end LEDs (IDE/SATA1 and SATA2) light up red when a drive is detected at the respective connectors. The four LEDs in the middle light up blue to show the percent completion of the cloning process.

Standalone Disk Cloning

One of the Kingwin EZ-Clone adapter’s unique features is the ability to duplicate or clone all the data on an IDE or SATA source drive onto another faster and/or larger SATA drive, without having to use a PC.

Standalone Cloning Procedure:
•    Plug in the AC power adapter and attach cable to EZ-Clone device
•    Connect an IDE or SATA source drive
•    Connect a SATA target drive
•    Turn power switch to the On position
•    The red IDE/SATA1 Source and SATA2 Target LEDS should light red
•    Press and hold the Clone button for ~3 seconds
•    The blue LED percent indicators should light up during the cloning process
•    When the 100% blue LED lights up the process is complete

Once the cloning process is complete you should have two identical drives containing the same files, boot sector, partition table and file system format. If the target drive is larger than the source drive, the remaining space will be an unallocated partition. You can later extend the partition or repartition and format the unused space to a new logical drive.

Edit 10-21-14: As several of our readers have pointed out, the target drive must have an equal or larger capacity than the source drive (you can't clone a 500 GB HDD to a new 256 GB SSD).

External Drive Adapter

Using the EZ-Clone as an external drive adapter:
•    Plug in the AC power adapter and attach cable to EZ-Clone device
•    Connect an IDE or SATA drive to IDE Source or SATA1 Source
•    Connect a second SATA drive to SATA2 Target (if using two SATA drives)
•    Turn power switch to the On position
•    The red IDE/SATA1 Source and/or SATA2 Target LEDS should light red
•    Connect USB 3.0 cable to PC (OS should recognize device and automatically install drivers)
•    Connected drives should be detected by the OS

The only minor issue we noted that was in a while the OS would not detect an attached drive if the EZ-Clone was already connected over USB. Allowing the EZ-Clone device to detect attached drives first and then make the USB connection to the PC always solved this issue.

Note: You cannot connect to the IDE Source and SATA1 Source at the same time. Only the IDE drive will be detected if both source drives are attached at the same time. Connect the SATA drive to the SATA2 Target connector to access both an IDE and SATA drive at the same time.

Testing

To get a feel for how fast the standalone cloning process is, I cloned a 64GB SSD to a new Corsair Force LX 256GB SSD.

After the push of a button it took 4 minutes and 51 seconds to clone a single NTFS partition containing 50.2 GB of data. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

In test two we are going to compare the speed of a SSD connected directly to a SATA3 mobo port to the speed of the same drive connected via the EZ-Clone adapter over USB 3.0.

SSD connected to Motherboard SATA3 port        SSD connected via EZ-Clone adapter

As expected, the EZ-Clone adapter takes a noticeable hit due to the overhead imposed by the USB 3.0 interface; but this looks normal. We also have to remember, raw speed is not the objective here – compact size and ease of use is the goal!

Thoughts and Conclusions

Kingwin’s new EZ-Clone HDD/SSD Clone Adapter proved convenient and very easy to use – just as advertised. The EZ-Clone adapter supports both 2.5” and 3.5” IDE and SATA drives (HDD or SSD) and features a fast USB 3.0 interface when used as an external drive adapter. One of its main features is the ability to quickly clone one HDD/SSD to another without the use of a PC. Just connect the old drive and the new drive and push a button – doesn’t get much easier than that!

Edit 10-21-14: As several of our readers have pointed out, the target drive must have an equal or larger capacity than the source drive (you can't clone a 500 GB HDD to a new 256 GB SSD, regardless of how much data is on the source drive). I failed to think of this while running tests – my bad, but I have checked with Kingwin and they confirmed it. Also as some readers have noted, basic – low cost cloning devices like the EZ-Clone are designed for convenience and do not offer some of the more advanced diagnostic and repair capabilities as PC based software utilities can offer.

Strengths:
•    Extremely simple Cloning Process
•    Standalone cloning operation doesn’t require a PC
•    Supports 2.5” and 3.5” IDE and SATA drives (HDD or SSD)
•    Compatible with SATA I/II/III (1.5/3.0/6.0 Gbps)
•    SATA Drive Hot-swap compatibility
•    Uses fast USB 3.0 interface when functioning as an external drive adapter
•    MSRP $39.99 ($33.99 from Amazon.com, Oct. 2014)

Weaknesses:
•    Trading raw speed and advanced features for convenience (you decide… 🙂
•    Target drive must be equal to or larger in capacity than the source (regardless of data)

Kingwin EZ-Clone USB 3.0 HDD/SSD Clone Adapter

Our thanks to Kingwin for sending us the EZ-Clone adapter to review!

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