Can USB 3.0 to SATA adapters be used with 3.5" drives?

Nuclear Fusion · 6 Jul 2013 at 09:55

Question as the title says really, I'm thinking of getting another Caviar Black 1Tb to make into an external drive. Would a standard USB 3.0 to SATA adapter work with this drive and allow it to run at full speed, bearing in mind it is a 3.5" drive? Thanks

Antowns · 6 Jul 2013 at 13:23

From experience I've always gotten around 110-120mbps using USB 3 and around half that if not more for USB 2.0. You can get USB 3.0 3.5 inch drives, usually listed as "desktop" external drives.

Surveyor · 6 Jul 2013 at 14:24

Antowns said:
From experience I've always gotten around 110-120mbps using USB 3 and around half that if not more for USB 2.0.

A HDD connected to USB 3.0 is basically going to be limited by the speed of the drive, perhaps 110-120MB/s in your case.

Theoretically USB 2.0 is capable of 60MB/s but I've yet to see more than around 25-30MB/s in real world usage.

Surveyor · 6 Jul 2013 at 14:30

Nuclear Fusion said:
Question as the title says really, I'm thinking of getting another Caviar Black 1Tb to make into an external drive. Would a standard USB 3.0 to SATA adapter work with this drive and allow it to run at full speed, bearing in mind it is a 3.5" drive? Thanks

As you haven't bought yet is it worth considering something like this: Samsung M3 1TB USB3.0 Slimline Portable Hard Drive - Piano Black?

Already in an enclosure, USB 3.0 and no external power supply required.

Nuclear Fusion · 6 Jul 2013 at 17:26

Yeah, I was thinking about just getting an already made one, but I had heard that the drives used tended to be slower than most internal ones, especially 2.5" sized ones.