PATA to SATA HDD External Converter

[John Doe 57]

The company I work for just did some spring cleaning and I ended up with a couple of free HDDs. The drive in question is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 (160GB 7200RPM) from 2003. It's an ATA-7 so it'll transfer up to 133MB/s which isn't all that great but... it was a free drive. The HDD was inside of a NetDisk NDAS but whenever I plug it into any Mac or PC, the drive does not spin. So either the drive is broken or the NetDisk NDAS is broken.

I had a previous experience with Maxtor a few years back, when my 500GB HDD stopped mounting. So I took apart the enclosure and mounted the HDD via a USB 3.0 docking station. The drive worked fine and that's why I'm curious to see if this 160GB drive works as well.

But because it's a PATA drive, I'm unable to mount it via my docking station which only does 3.5" and 2.5" SATA drives. All I can seem to find are converters that attach directly to the motherboard but I'm looking for an external solution, a PATA to SATA enclosure if you will, that connects over USB 3.0 or even FW800. If anyone knows of anything like that, I'll be one happy camper!

 

[elf69]

loads of adaptors or caddies online we use them at work all the time.

lots or external sata and ide caddies out there we stock them at work as see quite few ide still in business machines
they dont upgrade until it breaks

 

[John Doe 57]

loads of adaptors or caddies online we use them at work all the time.

lots or external sata and ide caddies out there we stock them at work as see quite few ide still in business machines
they dont upgrade until it breaks

Awesome! Any suggestions on a particular caddie to purchase? I'm seeing a lot of them for under $25USD.

I guess it comes down to "say the magic words" on Google because when I searched for IDE to SATA, loads of converters showed up. PATA to SATA lead my nowhere.

 

[thats all folks]

you are looking for recommendations of something to buy? I don't want to impose on your desires here but it's going to be hard to beat, just buying a new drive, that isn't 13 years old.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1249732-REG/wd_wdbuzg0010bbk_eesn_1tb_elements_usb_3_0.html
1TB, $54

but if you really want to,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182153

 

[tubeexperience]

Not sure if you're serious.

You can buy a 240GB SSD for ~$50.

 

[John Doe 57]

I ended up buying a IDE to SATA converter kit for $11. If it doesn't work or the drive ends up being dead, I'll just return it.

And yes I'm aware of today's HDD and SSD prices. My personal favorite is the Deskstar 4TB NAS drives from HGST for $160. What a time to be alive!

 

[hallux]

Honestly? I would have spent the extra $8 and gotten a dedicated IDE external drive enclosure. That eliminates a point of failure.

Rosewill RX35-AT-IU BLK - Aluminum 3.5" Black IDE USB 2.0 External Enclosure-Newegg.com

 

[John Doe 57]

Honestly? I would have spent the extra $8 and gotten a dedicated IDE external drive enclosure. That eliminates a point of failure.

Rosewill RX35-AT-IU BLK - Aluminum 3.5" Black IDE USB 2.0 External Enclosure-Newegg.com

But that's only USB 2.0 and I'd really like to fully utilize the drives "blazing" 133MB/s speed.

 

[jeremysteele]

But that's only USB 2.0 and I'd really like to fully utilize the drives "blazing" 133MB/s speed.

Unfortunately, with the way the older drives were manufactured (not enough bit density, not optimized as much as newer drives, etc) you'll probably never see that speed even under ideal conditions.

TL;DR - The interface is 133 MB/s. Not the drive.