Apricorn Drivewire Universal HDD Adapter USB To 2.5IN & 3.5IN Sata & Pata
by APRICORN MASS STORAGE
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List Price: Our Price: $29.99 You Save: $8.00 (21%) Availability: Usually ships in 3-4 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apricorn Drivewire Universal HDD Adapter USB To 2.5IN & 3.5IN Sata & Pata
Customer Review: Unreliable transfers
Summary: 2 Stars
While easy to install, and generally functioning, the device I got does not satisfy my needs, since the transfers are error prone. At least for 3.5" IDE/PATA drives.
If I try to transfer 500GB from a drive, I'll get roughly 100 errors.
To be clear, there is no error notified during the transfer, so everything looks OK at first glance.
But if I run a diff between the source and the target, roughly 100 files will differ.
If I run a second diff, a different set of 100 will differ.
The overlap between the 2 sets is approximately the ones that got mangled during the copy, the others those that were misread during the diff.
Ran the test with 4 different IDE/PATA 3.5" drives.
If I connect the drives through another device (enclosure), then the transfers are OK, So neither the drives nor the PC are to blame.
For 2.5" IDE/PATA and SATA drives, I have other easy means of access. So I did not feel compelled to do pro-bono testing work.
For 3.5" IDE/PATA, I was looking for something easier to setup than the enclosure, and more durable than ribbon cables, but this device is not it.
Customer Review: A Great Device
Summary: 5 Stars
My father-in-law recommended this after visiting a local computer store where the employees mentioned that they all use this (which after using it I actually believe). I took his advice and picked up one as well. It is a great device / huge time-saver. I used it to clone my 200 GB MacBook Pro HD to a new 500 GB drive (I let it do this overnight), then simply swapped the drives and re-booted the computer. WAY faster than re-installing the system, moving over all the data from a backup, etc. The included software works great (be sure to get an update from the website if you use a Mac / likely also true for you Windows folks out there).
I will also use this to access drives that I have pulled from retired computers - a bit more backup space perfect for those drives not big enough to justify a dedicated drive enclosure.
The software has a simple interface and is not totally clear on the fact it makes a bootable clone (though you can see something like "make bootable" as a grayed-out item in its "to do" list as it copies the files). The important thing is that it does make a bootable clone and for me worked flawlessly. Highly recommended.
Customer Review: Simplify hard drive install with Drivewire
Summary: 5 Stars
Installing a new hard drive can be a pain. Not so much the physical installation of the drive, but the migration of your data to it. Usually you'll have to reinstall the OS as well as all of your application programs and their related data files. Then after a couple of days of tweaking, you're finally up and running...hopefully!
Now, with Apricorn's Drivewire the whole process can be completed in a few hours, depending on the size and configuration of your original hard drive. I was able to take an internal 300GB drive with three partitions and migrate it to a larger 1TB drive in roughly 4 hours. With Drivewire I was able to clone all my data and its relationships, maintain and reconfigure the sizes the three partitions without any problems. The BIOS recognized the new drive once installed, and in Windows' Drive Management I just pointed the OS to the old drive letters, and I was done.
This is a great product. If you need or want to upgrade your hard drive and it's data, backup your hard drive's image, clone data to another drive, Apricorn's Drivewire is a must. It is the Swiss Army Knife of hard drive utility.
Customer Review: Minimized Downtime for HD Upgrade
Summary: 5 Stars
I ordered this item and a 360GB laptop drive to upgrade my laptop's 100GB drive. Here were the steps I followed to super easy installation:
1) Hook up new drive to adapter and plug adapter in to USB
2) Put CD in computer drive
3) Reboot computer, ensuring that CD has boot priority over HD
4) Select clone drive, set source and destination drives
5) Wait 45 minutes
6) Disconnect everything, remove laptop cover, unscrew and remove old drive
7) Remove old drive from carriage and attach carriage to new drive
8) Install new drive and replace laptop cover
9) Boot and enjoy :)
I did have a hiccup as I attempted to use a free drive cloning software before I used the CD that came with the adapter. The software I used took 9 hours to clone the old drive to the new drive (!?) and then it didn't boot ("No operating system found").
Once I booted off the included CD it was quick and painless.
One thing to note: in the pictures it looks like the adapter is a nice anodized aluminum. Don't fool yourself. This sucker is plastic. But it works great.
Customer Review: It works!
Summary: 5 Stars
I didn't know there was such a product till my 8 year old DELL 4400 desktop's motherboard went bad. I had two HDD in them (One seagate & another Western digital) containing valuable data. Bestbuy would charge me 100 bucks for transferring upto 9GB (to flash drive) and 50+ dollars for more. This is when I came to know about this product. I read the reviews & immediately ordered it online! This was really a great money saver.
The transfer procedure was almost as easy as connecting a thumb drive and the transfer rate was decent enough (similar to USB 2.0). Windows 7 recognized the device immediately and there was no installation required. In short it made an internal HDD work like external HDD!
Couple of points to note.
1) When I first initiated the process, I got the message that I need to run as an administrator to do so. After clicking OK the process went fine.
2) I though the Western Digital HDD got heated up a little bit so I was concerned to have it hooked up for a long time (more than 30 mins).
I haven't tried it with SATA or the cloning S/W provided so cannot comment on that.