Are there any 2.5" enclosures with IDE on the inside and eSATA on the outside?

This thread is closed so I can't continue it. I've tried looking through Newegg and if I search for IDE internal and eSATA external, the only result I get is this crappy-looking OKGEAR:

Newegg.com - OKGEAR OK250AU2S-K Aluminum 2.5" USB2.0 & eSATA External Enclosure

But even that doesn't do it. The eSATA external connection only works if you use an SATA internal drive. The IDE internal connection only works over USB.

So does such a thing not even exist?

 

not that I have ever seen. besides there is no point as a PATA hard drive would be hard pressed normally to saturate a USB 2.0 port.

I just use PATA to USB cables and skip the enclosure entirely ... granted they are mostly used for data recovery on older laptops

 

I'm not worried about speed, I'm concerned about low-level access for recovery and not being able to access SMART, etc.

 

get a good USB to Pata cable then. for recovery I have had better luck with them then enclosures

or if you really want you can get a Esata/SATA enclosure or cable and then clip on a PATA to SATA adaptor.

 

Can you recommend something specific?

 

If he wants to pass ATA commands, I am wondering if USB would help.

 

I find USB better for recovery purposes of older drives. SMART and raw data streaming is supported well.

as for a good cable I actually use a $30 startech kit which is dual PATA ( 40 and 44 pin ) as well as SATA

similar to tis one
NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter

 

Care to elaborate?
The PATA interface (specified up to 133 MBytes/sec) is not the bottleneck. A PATA HDD is in no way slower than a SATA drive with the same "mechanical" parameters (rotational speed, data density).

So, unless you are talking about 10~20GB drives from the early 2000's, the bottleneck is the USB interface that is maximng out at 30 MBytes/sec at best.

Michael

 

I thought USB 2.0 was 480mbps or 60MB/s with realistic at maybe 40-45MB/s? I am in the middle of doing a huge file transfer (~ 700MB) from my desktop 7200RPM HDD to a USB 2.0 external 2.5" HDD (Toshiba Canvio Plus) and during large sequential writes peaks at about 42MB/s.

 

You are asking to cross over interface that runs through a 3rd, which is unlikely.
You also have to realize much info is lost during the USB connection. In most cases you can't get SMART info even.


If you really need this functionality, you will need to interface it directly with the board. USB wasn't really intended for that sort of thing and most adapters are cheap and intended for just basic data transfer. Early USB nics even had trouble with bi-direction traffic and error checking.


As for the comment about USB and speed,
A 3.5 drive can saturate it, but very few spinning 2.5in disks will saturate it. Even then, it's pretty close. While the specification says 100 or 133 (some 150), most desktops struggled to pull more than 90 (though some managed about 120, they were rare), and notebooks were usually closer to 60-70, so any loss would be minimal.

 

I bought a Newer Technology Universal Drive Adapter, and I cannot access the SMART data over it, at least not with the Disk Utility in Ubuntu.