RE: USB to IDE Interfaces
> From: Martin McCormick [mailto:martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu]
> Subject: USB to IDE Interfaces
>
> I want to be able to connect various IDE drives to a Linux
> system via USB port for backups, restores, and diagnostics such
> as: Is this drive good for anything other than a paper weight?
>
> I'd hate to buy an interface and find out I need some
> special driver that only exists under Windows.
>
> I have used dedicated USB devices that had IDE drives in
> them and they worked fine all be it slo-o-owly on a USB2 port,
> but this would be different because each IDE drive is going to
> be formatted differently and be anywhere from gigabytes to 40
> megabytes in capacity.
>
> If I understand things right, the IDE drive itself
> registers its parameters so this may not be an issue and the
> device should respond to mount, dd, and fdisk like any other
> device.
>
> I am hoping to upgrade the IDE drives on some older
> Linux systems from 10 GB to larger and use the USB to IDE
> converter to assist in transfering files and using the still
> functional smaller drives as archival storage.
>
> Any ideas and recommendations as to which interfaces are
> good or which should be avoided are appreciated.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK
> Systems Engineer
> OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services
Group
>
I have one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002
It works rather well over all. I have not had any problems with IDE, the
laptop IDE, or the SATA connections nor any problems with it not
recognizing drives that I know work. Granted, I don't really push the
limits of it; it is just there when I do have a drive I need to look at
the contents and I don't want to reboot the system. It gets light usage.
I only really have 2 complaints about it.
1) When you plug it into a Debian Lenny (haven't really tested it on
much else) it displays just like my USB thumbdrives do. Every once in a
while though, when you unmount and disconnect the device, HAL freaks
out. Then other USB thumbdrives and things no longer automount. HAL has
to be reset. I haven't looked in a couple of months, but I did find a
bug report back when I did look. I don't think I have seen this problem
in the last couple of weeks, but I haven't really used it much recently
either.
2) I can't find any of the USB devices that will work with SmartMonTools
or anything else that tries to connect to the hard drive itself. In
order to do that you need one that has the cypress chipset. There are
some out there supposedly, but I haven't ever found one for purchase...
For more details see here:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/faq.html#testinghelp
To answer your questions directly, the Newegg link will work at least in
the current Debian Lenny for backup and restores without any special
drivers. You may find that your diagnostics don't work. I don't have an
answer for you on that as I have not been able to find one myself.
The only group of devices I recommend you stay far away from are the
ones that supply power /only/ via USB. I have tried 2 of them and they
both had 2 USB plugs, one for power and one for data. They seemed to
work perfectly on the laptop drives, but neither of them seemed to
function when connected to a standard IDE. I did not test SATA on those.
The others I have tried, including the one linked above, have separate
power for the drives.
Good Luck!
Have Fun!
~S~
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