Tuesday, June 29th 2010
PhotoFast Intros GBox Mini USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter
SSD and flash memory specialists PhotoFast developed what they call the GBox mini, an adapter that converts USB 3.0 to SATA. The adapter connects to the host with a USB 3.0 connector (for data and power), and an additional USB 2.0 (purely for power). The two connectors share the same cable so clutter is minimized. On its other end, the adapter has a SATA connector with both data and power ports. It can connect to any SATA HDD, SSD, or optical drive. Although the USB 3.0 interface has a generous maximum bandwidth of 4.8 Gb/s, the device has transfer speeds of up to 128 MB/s (SATA device to system) and 96 MB/s (system to SATA device). The GBox mini comes with a copy of DriveClone 7 Pro software bundled, necessary cable, and is expected to be priced at US $22, when it hits the Japanese markets next month.
Source:
Softpedia
11 Comments on PhotoFast Intros GBox Mini USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter
There are a lot of perfectly good old IDE drives out there - great for backups & shiz - and an IDE<-->USB3 would be awesome....
Could barely maintains a spinning 3.5-inch drive, don't even think about cold-starting one.
Basically you are limited to 2.5-inch drives.
IDE can easily do 100MB/s. USB 2.0 gets stuck around 30MB/s
IDE to sata (and vice versa) adaptors are cheap and plentiful, so you could go USB 3.0 -> SATA II -> IDE -> old drive. it'd just be clunky and need a few more power connectors