Reviewed by: gypsylady on 30-Apr-08 Rating:

Strengths:Easy to set up and use!

Weaknesses:None that I can think of!

Summary:The Apricorn USB HDD Adapter saved the day for me. I had a computer crash and did not know if it was the Motherboard or the Hard Drive. I had so much saved on the Hard Drive, such as, pictures and important data. The Apricorn USB Adapter plugged my old Hard Drive right into my new computer and all was data was there and accessible. This was the greatest feeling to see all my precious pictures again. I have learned a lesson now to back my data up, in case of a computer failure! The Apricorn USB-HDD Adapter was so much easier to use then trying to slave the hard drive to another computer, so I was very pleased with my purchase. The price of the Adapter is reasonable and well worth it to be able to transfer data from one hard drive to another! Thank-You Apricorn you made my day!

Reviewed by: IndyMoon on 14-Apr-08 Rating:

Strengths:Great tool! Compatible with all 2.5\" or 3.5\" PATA/SATA hard drives.

Weaknesses:NONE

Summary:If you need access to hard drives removed from a computer for whatever reason, This universal DriveWire is what you need! It\'s Small, easily fit in a briefcase or toolbox, has a power supply to power-up the hard drive. I use Acrons True Image to backup, recover and clone my hard drive, There was no any trouble using the adapter!
Recommend it to anyone looking for this type of device.

Reviewed by: Bob_F1 on 10-Apr-08 Rating:

Strengths:Inexpensive after rebate. Compact, Solid construction. Eliminates the need for an external hard drive enclosure for cloning hard drives.

Weaknesses:A case would have been nice to hold all of the accessories. The AC power adapter is huge relative to the size of the adapter itself.

Summary:This is a very cool little device that eliminates the need for an external hard drive enclosure for cloning hard drives.

With the manufacturer\'s rebate, these are very inexpensive.

I found the construction to be solid and it\'s a nice looking piece with the red finish.

I didn\'t use the bundled cloning software so I can\'t comment on that.

Pay attention to the helpful tip in one of the other reviews where you need to hook up the hard drive before making the USB connection in order for it to be recognized by your computer.

A small case would have been nice to hold all of the assorted accesories together. (I have everything in a heavy duty gallon sized Zip Lok bag.)

Reviewed by: jwkoda on 04-Apr-08 Rating:

Strengths:Small, Portable, Inexpensive, Versatile

Weaknesses:Power Adapter is large

Summary:This is a affordable hard drive adapter made to clone hard drives. It works with IDE or SATA drives and even with 2.5\" laptop drives. It worked as advertised for me and I have also used it for data recovery operations. It is frequently available for almost free after mail in rebate. I use it frequently and recommend it to anyone looking for this type of device.

Reviewed by: ajny on 03-Mar-08 Rating:

Strengths:Small, compact, comes with all required accessories. Reliable. Well built

Weaknesses:Too many parts (power supply, cables etc etc.)- unless you are careful, you could misplace them.

Summary:I bought this adapter as I have a bunch of drive that I shuffle between computers. This adapter is not meant to be used as a full time data access tool, rather something that can aid in quick transfer of data/ backup.

I comes nicely packed in shrinkwrap, has all needed parts (USB cables, IDE/SATA cables, power supply, backup software on CD, documentation). Documentation is not great, but then again, there is not really much to it. The adapter itself is very small and well built. I wish it came with a small case or something, you could misplace some cables etc. Thought I did not conduct any formal speed tests etc, but I think it was fast enough for my needs. I was able to backup about 20 GB from data from my old laptop HDD to a newer drive (IDE) in about an hour ..maybe less. I have tried it on a bunch of different PCs, so far it has never disappointed me. I never got a chance to try it on a mac. Overall- its a great little tool for IT pros and is great value for money. Its much better built than that cheap ebay stuff and is priced not that much higher than those cheaper adapters.

Reviewed by: GINayner on 21-Feb-08 Rating:

Strengths:multi formats & size

Weaknesses:none

Summary:I was able to copy over from laptop to new hard drive without a hitch. Still takes a while, I left it running all night. Used it on a friend\'s laptop too and didn\'t encounter any problems, he wants one now.

Reviewed by: rgkrishn on 12-Feb-08 Rating:

Strengths:It works ! It is very small to carry in a pocket and it is simple to use. Mainly great for quick and dirty copies/backups or emergency work.

Weaknesses:Has no cooling fan etc. unlike enclosures and so it is not something that can replace an enclosure. Not all features seem solid (backup).h

Summary:I tested this as soon as I received. The unit is very small
and fits in my palm and can be carried around in a short pocket. It is not flimsy and has nice finish with no sticking pins to poke etc. However if you use a 3.5\" type drive then you need to plug in the extra power supply into this unit and that is similar in to a laptop power supply and does not fit into shirt pockets ;(

So you just plug in the Hard drive into one of the three pinouts in this unit and plug in the unit into a PC or lapop using a USB cable. The laptop should see the unit and hard drive as an external disk drive and you can then do the normal things like copy files to/from the Hard disk you attached to his unit into your PC/laptop.

The unit comes with software/drivers and I tried the software they have for full disk backup/recovery.
The first 3.5\" HD I attached to it was seen in explorer
but when I tried to copy files to it showed some errors
and failed to copy. I gave up and called the tech support.
Tech support was busy and a message came on to tell me to leave a VM and someone will call back. I tried again in a few mins and got a person who said the issue may be with the hard disk. I plugged the disk into a PC and had some
issue there too and so the support person may be right.

Then I attached a brand new notebook drive 120MB drive
to the unit and connected the unit to USB of my laptop
running XP. It was not visible in explorer - so I formatted it and it took *forever* (about 90mins)!
I have no idea why!
After it completed formatting I realized it was NTFS
while my laptop had Fat32 and so I redid the formatting
with fat32 and this time it was quick (about 5mins).
Then I used their Disk clone backup software to make a clone of my laptop hard drive which was also 120MB
and that took almost 30mins or so. I did this with
windows running in normal mode.
The tech support person said the software will make a
perfect image of the source drive even with windows
running.
Then I removed the laptop\'s hard drive and replaced it
with the clone drive I just made and booted the laptop
and got all types of wierd system errors during boot
and bootup failed !! I removed the clone disk I made
and put back the original hard disk in laptop and it
worked just fine.
So definitely there is an issue with cloning disks.
Then I proceeded to reformat the drive and copied
many many files (total about 80GB) and all of them copied well and quickly at USB2.0 speeds.

So the unit seems to be ok for copies and perhaps with
some better backup software like Symantec or TrueImage it will work fine for backups too. The hardware seems ok.

Compared to a couple of other similar products I have tried before which failed utterly, this product at least seems to do basic file copies well.

Also the unit attached directly to hard drives and there
is no cooling (fan) etc. unlike an enclosure - so the unit is not meant for long term connectivity to PCs like enclosures that provide online file storage.

Reviewed by: Lafalot on 01-Feb-08 Rating:

Strengths:Compatible with all 2.5\" or 3.5\" PATA/SATA hard drives, very portable.

Weaknesses:AC Adapter is very large.

Summary:This device allows quick transfer of large files between two desktop/laptop computers without having to put the hard drive into an external enclosure. The cloning software bundled with the device is useful as well. Since it does not protect the hard drive in any way, this is not intended for long periods of use.

Reviewed by: EliSlider on 29-Jan-08 Rating:

Strengths:swiss-army-kinfe of usb adaptors. uses a molex for power so you could use it with a normal PSU or the included power brick

Weaknesses:power brick is huge and it has a really short thick cable that makes it cumbersome. doesnt read my drives apparently either

Summary:tried it with a macbook sata drive and it showed up but i couldnt modify the drive. then i tried it with a laptop ide drive and it wouldnt work at all. i was pretty disappointed after reading all the user comments that said it worked well. I have another crappy 2.5

Reviewed by: diandian23 on 28-Jan-08 Rating:

Strengths:Competent to almost all format of hard drive.

Weaknesses:A little cumbersome because of the power accessory when use 3.5\' disk, but not its fault...

Summary:I have more than 6 hard drives in hand and each would require a enclosure without this HDD adapter. This piece of technique works just smoothly. I only tried 3.5\' and you need to plug the power supply to the HD. A little tip: you need to hook up the hard drive before plug in the USB, otherwise the computer wouldn\'t recognize it.

Reviewed by: wilsonwu on 22-Jan-08 Rating:

Strengths:Works for 2.5\" or 3.5\" PATA/SATA hard drive.

Weaknesses:If the gadget can handle CD/DVD or CD-RW/DVD-RW drive, it would be even better.

Summary:Test it on several 2.5\" and 3.5\" PATA hard drives so far. It works great! Do not test it on SATA hard drives yet.

This is a great tech. support tool, very convenient when you need switch connection between several hard drives. But if you just have one extra hard drive, you should consider a hard drive enclosure, as this tool do not have case or cooling fan to protect your hard drive.

Reviewed by: adityaag on 20-Jan-08 Rating:

Strengths:Very convenient for pulling data off of hard drives.

Weaknesses:Don\'t like need a power adapter even for 2.5 PATA drives.

Summary:This is a really nifty tool for anyone who does some technical support work. It\'s really easy to hook up any hard drive to the the gadget and pull data off of it. It also includes a CD which cloning software which is really easy to use. I do wish the software was on a flash drive or something non-optical since not all laptops come with CD drives anymore. Overall pretty good tool.

Reviewed by: gruerabbit on 18-Jan-08 Rating:

Strengths:It is able to attach PATA or SATA drives, 2.5\" or 3.5\" and go.

Weaknesses:No case to protect your hard drive.The power cord is too short.

Summary:I have used this little box for a while. It is handy to have a little gadget like this that support 2.5\" and 3.5\" PATA/SATA drives.
But if you use your harddrive a lot, you\'d better consider a hard drive enclosure. This tool is good only for temporary use.
Also the power cable is too short.

Reviewed by: splitsoul on 17-Jan-08 Rating:

Strengths:It works

Weaknesses:very inconvenient, device is not protectable

Summary:Don\'t buy it.

The reason for me to buy it is because it looks small and handy on my extra hard drive which I need to connect to the computer without extra slots. Yes. It works to connect the drive with the computer.

However, there are more potential problems. It is not very convenient as it looks. You need to have a USB cord, a power cord, and a power adapter in order to link your drive to the computer. This means you need to carry all items with you if you need to use the hard drive somewhere else.

In addition, you need to connect this device with your OEM hard drive. In this way, your harddrive is not protected by anything else. If you have the hard drive fall down on the floor or encounter unstable electric current, you probably will cause permanent damage to your hard drive.

I would strongly recommend you to buy an enclosure which offers extra care to the drive. Moreover, most enclosure is equipped with surge protector. You don\'t need to worry if unstable current may damage your hard drive.