Using a SATA drive in a non-SATA system

wwwebber · 22 Nov 2006 at 09:14

Hi Guys

I have a spare 120GB SATA drive and a friend of mine could do with the extra storage in his system - but he doesn't have SATA.

Is there an adaptor that I could buy that allows me to plug a SATA drive into an IDE port ?.

Cheers.

hp7909 · 22 Nov 2006 at 09:28

Maybe this instead? Out of stock, though just an idea in case available somewhere else

wwwebber · 22 Nov 2006 at 09:42

hp7909 said:
Maybe this instead? Out of stock, though just an idea in case available somewhere else

Yeah -I considered one of these. The only issue is - can I boot a system drive from it ?.

rpstewart · 22 Nov 2006 at 10:15

Some adapters you can, some you can't. You'll need to check the individual specs carefully.

There are adapters available to allow you to plug a SATA drive onto an IDE cable, similar to an ABIT Serielle but the other way round. I've not seen them advertised for sale in the UK though.

An external USB2 enclosure is also an option but they're better for backups rather than day to day storage due to the performance limitations of the USB connection.