I use a docking station that allows you to drop a SATA drive into it, and it acts just like another hard drive on the system. it plugs into the computer via a USB line, and has an external power supply to get the +5 and +12 to spin the drive. This model of dock also has memory card slots and 2 additional USB ports for memory sticks.
I use it to reformat and image drives at work, and to read the memory cards of the different cameras that everyone uses. Most of our tech staff has portable drives made from laptop drives put into an external USB enclosure. Not the cheap way to go, but it was more cost efficient at the time. On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:05:30 -0400, you wrote: >Thanks Dave, they must be popular... they are out of stock of the $59.00 >model I am interested in. > >Andy K3UK > >On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Dave AA6YQ <aa...@ambersoft.com> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> Addonics makes a product that lets you convert any IDE drive into an >> external USB drive. Access via USB is significantly slower than native IDE >> access, but you can connect to any PC with a USB interface; perhaps they >> have a USB 2.0 version by now: >> >> http://www.addonics.com/products/io/ >> >> While converters like these are somewhat slow, they allow you to connect >> a drive up to a running PC -- eliminating the need to power it down, open >> its chassis, and make the IDE or SATA connection -- which can be difficult >> in a smaller chassis stuffed with cables. >> >>
