Ever since I bought a new hard disk of 2 TB capacity, I do not seem to need any other storage media. All my older hard disks and USB flash disks are accumulating dust somewhere in my house. Whenever I need my older hard disk, I had to open the computer box by taking out all the six screws and then attaching the old hard disk and booting into Windows. This was all very cumbersome, painful and tiring just to access a few files from a secondary hard disk. Then I thought why not access the SATA hard disks via a standard USB data cable? That way I won’t even have to turn off the PC as I attach the hard disk to the computer.
A little googling and I soon found out about a simple USB 3.0 to SATA adapter that can do the job. It can be used to connect any SATA hard disk through the USB 3.0 cable to your computer. The adapter is not bulky but is rather small in size. It works flawlessly with Windows PC and gives USB 3.0 data speeds for your hard disks.
So basically all you have to do is buy a USB to SATA adapter, connect the adpater to your hard disk and the USB cable to your computer. Because the hard disk needs external power, you have to attach the power cable between the SATA adpater, an AC/DC adapter and the wall socket. As soon as you see the POWER LED light up in the USB to SATA adapter, you will see the hard disk in your computer.
These USB to SATA adapters do no cost much and can quickly convert any standard SATA hard disk into a portable hard disk. If you do not care too much about the data speed, then you can get even cheaper USB to SATA adapter that supports data transfer speeds of the USB 2.0 standards.
Conclusion: Using a simple USB to SATA adapter, you can convert a standard SATA hard disk into a portable USB hard disk. This way you would be able to connect any of your older hard disks to your computer without having to attach them to motherboard’s SATA ports.
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Is there a cable that can provide power to a sata Drive seperately to the data connector.
Yes, there is 12V/5V SATA adapter that attaches to SATA drives to supply power. Some of them need extra Molex to SATA cable. You can find plenty of them on Amazon or eBay.