USB to SATA/IDE Universal Kit with One Touch Backup
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 14th 2006 10:59AM
posted Jul 14th 2006 10:59AM
Just get a shiny new hard drive and need to transfer your files over? Or maybe you're just doing your duty and backing up information on a regular basis; whatever the reasons, and we're sure there's more, getting files onto your bare drive gets simple with this driver-less USB to SATA/IDE Universal Kit with One Touch Backup. This kit works its magic by providing the best of both worlds: portability and one-touch simplicity are wrapped into one marvel of functionality. You'll get support for 3.5-inch SATA/SATA II drives up to 750GB and all IDE/EIDE drives up to 500GB -- a fancy "bisynchronous mode" copies data onto two drives simultaneously. Just plug it in, give the button a press, and you're set -- and although time is money, be aware that this modern-day convenience will run you $42.
I wonder if this could successfully transfer a hardrive with an OS on it without extra steps to have the new drive working as a replacement for the old.
"getting files onto your bare drive gets simple with this driver-less USB to SATA/IDE Universal Kit"
Driver-less? Then why does it come with a Driver CD?
From the website:
Package content:
Driver CD
Probably comes with the driver disk for Windows 98.
Well, you clicked READ..you just didnt do it ;)
From the site:
# Support PC/ Mac OS/ Notebook
# Support OS : Win98SE, 2000, ME, XP, Mac OS 8.6 or higher.
# Win2000, ME, XP no driver needed.
I want a device you can connect an EIDE or SATA drive to, then connect a new drive of equal or larger size, that will clone the first disk to the new disk. And do this very quickly and without need of a PC or OS. I thought this would do that but it looks more like just a USB-IDE adapter that supports SATA and has a one touch backup button.
@Steven: Wild guess - Windows 98/ME
They don't support USB plug 'n' play natively
jorellh: Your device exists. It's called the Diskology Disk Jockey. I've got one, and it works great. Not only does it do disk-to-disk copy w/o a computer, but you can use it as a raid controller. Plug in two drives and connect it to a PC with firewire or usb and it'll mirror or span the volumes.
http://www.diskology.com/djstandard.html
Can this Disk Jockey be used to ramp a Tivo 40 to something larger without screwing up the existing partition and data?
I just bought a nearly identical device from NewEgg (I think it was about $27), looks the same but lacks the blue LED and one-touch button. Used it to to clean up some spyware infested laptop drives from my desktop. Excellent product.
@TheChaz: your Diskjockey looks like it does the exact same thing as this "one touch backup kit" does, except that it supports Firewire, RAID, but does not support SATA w/o an adapter card...and it's $350. I'd much rather have the "one touch backup kit" for its price.
Either TheChaz works for Diskology, or he is one misguided fanboy with too much money.
kaybee,
The devices don't do the same thing. The device Chaz suggested does drive to drive imaging like Ghost, without the need for a PC. This thing just allows you to connect 1 or 2 drives to a PC via usb and backup some files from the PC to the USB drive. Not the same thing. I want the device Chaz suggested but it is too expensive for my budget...
I'm going to order one of these. My drives are starting to pile up. Both SATA and IDE. I was looking at the Wiebetech DriveDock products which look cool, but they are more $$ and seem to be usb OR IDE - but not both in that price range. Wiebetech has firewire though.
I would like to point out that Newer Technology has a better and cheaper product like this in their ATA/ATAPI/IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 Universal Adapter. For $25 (almost half the price) it lets you connect to 2.5, 3.5, and 5.25 inch ATA or SATA devices.
Stupid comment system removed the link from my last comment.
http://newertech.com/products/products_univ_adptr.php
I don't think the NewerTechnology "drive adapter" is the same as a "one touch backup" solution.
hold on... does this need an OS to work? if so, that means you can't plug in your boot drive, and have that copy over to backup your boot drive. Is the 1button just a macro that launches a select all and copy?
is there any hardware/software availiable that copys ENTIRE hard drives INCLUDING the OS so that it is like you have 2 of the same computers??
I guess you could call me a disk jockey fanboy, if by that you mean someone who likes the product because it does exactly what I need, at a reasonable price ($250, not $350 if you JFGI: http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/), and works as advertised.
Does anyone know if this thing will allow me to run one IDE and one SATA HDD at the same time? Through one USB port and only using one power source?
From the pictures, SATA to IDE connection, it seems like it's possible since it's to copy hdd's back and forth.
This will let me CLose HARD DRIVES?
I wonder if I could close my Xbox Hard drive with this?
Using both same source and destination drives?
Kris K
Mudoggy's queries about the one-button backup seem valid. I've not seen anywhere exactly how and what this item does. Is your cloned drive bootable? Does it just back up the data directories? Orwhat?
And if you're copying a drive to a DVD or CD-RW drive, does it allow for changing disks to accomplish a total backup?
Any ACTUAL USERS or KNOWLEDGEABLE FOLKS out there in readerland?
For better and more efficient backups and restores of all your important files and folders, you can also take a look at another reliable service IBackup.