Review Details

USB 3.0 to PATA and SATA 3.5 and 2.5 inch hard drive adapter

Product Review (submitted on September 21, 2013):

Product is well built and expect will outlast me. It is of a more "finished" appearance than many alternatives. There are competitors that offer a product that looks more make-shift, home made, barebones than the CoolGear® Adapter.

I had multiple old laptops and PC of the family, which for varuous reasons were no longer functioning well enough to access data on their drives. Due to potential identity theft and other privacy concerns, I couldn't trust selling, giving away or even recycling these old systems until I was sure I had all data I needed from them and had wiped beyond recovery all data on them. I have been "planning" to pull the drives for some time. I had one of the more course style hard drive adapter which I had used many years ago. But I found it was limited to IDE drives and some of the drives I needed to purge were ATA. The CoolGear® Adapter handled every different drive I had from my oldest defunct desktop to my most recent but unreliable laptop.

The only issue I can raise as a caution (and it really isn't a serious problem) is how some drives are housed within supporting structures which can block connection with the CoolGear® Adapter, because of it's more refined form. The more rough and unrefined designs might fit with less trouble. However, in my case, I found that each such complication was easily addressed by either removing the housing with screwdriver and/or spanner or by just bending the light metal used on such structures to get easy access to connectors and then just re-straighten the mounting when finished.

I now have 2 old desktops still usable as servers for a home or small business network and 2 laptops that only need power plug connectors replaced and new batteries, which I can sell at a garage sale. I have already given the 3rd laptop to a relative to salvage parts (including the hard drive) for his identical model so that his old system now works perfectly again.

I have no regrets with this purchase of the The CoolGear® Hard Drive Adapter from Amazon. In fact it has become a budding new hobby or perhaps even a business as I am now looking for opportunities to use it again.