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    Hdd SATA to USB. What are limitations?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by sawko, Jan 13, 2019.

  1. sawko

    sawko Newbie

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    Hello everyone. My notebook hard drive became unbootable after a little mishap. Probably damaged partitions structure or even disks' surface. I'm going to connect it to a working notebook to fix it or restore files at least. I have two options: 1.Buy SATA to USB cable. 2.Buy DVD drive caddy for Hdd.
    Usb cable would be more convenient to have. But dvd caddy means sata to sata connection. I don't care about data transfer speeds though. I'm thinking if usb connection may have any hdd access limitations that sata connection hasn't? Could I fix boot sectors, MRB, partitions by usb? Would be thankful for advice.
     
    sawko, Jan 13, 2019
    #1
  2. downloads

    downloads No, Dee Dee, no! Super Moderator

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    There are no limitations to USB to SATA. I have used such setup to recover data on multiple occasions from other people's drives and had no issues with it - it was well worth the purchase.
    I also have a 2 in 1 convertible where an additional SATA drive is in the keyboard-part and is essentially bridged via USB to the tablet part. I have access to all of the diagnostics including all SMART related information.
     
    downloads, Jan 13, 2019
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    toughasnails likes this.
  3. Starlight5

    Starlight5 Yes, I'm a cat. What else is there to say, really?

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    @sawko many if not most USB-SATA bridges do not support TRIM, thus are bad to use with SSDs. I'd buy a DVD caddy if I were you, it is more future-proof.
     
    Starlight5, Jan 13, 2019
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  4. pete962

    pete962 Notebook Evangelist

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    What I would do is buy SATA to USB enclosure and use it as portable backup drive, if the drive can be recovered. In US (not sure what's your origin and prices) you can get USB3 for $10 which gives sequential transfer rate of up to 150MB/s. Except for emergency data recovery, where TRIM doesn't matter, I just don't see why would you ever want to have SSD in outside USB enclosure and future proofing $10 purchase sounds silly to me, but as they say YDMV.
     
    pete962, Jan 14, 2019
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  5. Starlight5

    Starlight5 Yes, I'm a cat. What else is there to say, really?

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    @pete962 bough from China, optical drive SATA enclosure is $3, and USB3.0 HDD enclosure is $4-something - someone patient might as well grab both.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2019
    Starlight5, Jan 14, 2019
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  6. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

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    I would go with a USB to SATA. It is generally handy to have for your kind of situation or when you change computer and you want to keep the old drive around for a while in case you might have forgotten to transfer something.
     
    tijo, Jan 21, 2019
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