FRONTPAGE Inateck UA1001 USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter Review

[Overclockers.com]

In for today is an item a little out of the norm for my reviews, the Inateck UA1001 USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter. I'm sure you all have seen plenty of external HDD/SSD enclosures and docking stations, but this is Inateck's portable solution. This adapter is small enough to stick in your pocket, backpack, or laptop bag for use on the fly. Instead of encasing the HDD or SSD, this adapter just plugs in to the end of the drive much like SATA cables would. Let's take a look the adapter and check out the performance!

Click here to view the article.

 

[Janus67]

nice short and sweet review, good job atm.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

nice short and sweet review, good job atm.

Thanks Janus!

 

[HankB]

Thanks for the short and sweet review.

From the Amazon page:

... up to Max. 4TB

Why do these devices have this limitation? Is it something inherent in the USB spec? Some other built in limitation? I think I would have to qualify any recommendation for something like this if it does not work with all devices presently on the market.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

It's a limitation of USB, not the device.
The 4TB drives exceed the maximum logical block number that USB supports.

 

[HankB]

It's a limitation of USB, not the device.
The 4TB drives exceed the maximum logical block number that USB supports.

I'm a little surprised that the folks who designed USB 3.0 didn't see that coming and figure out a way to accommodate it. Perhaps it would break backward compatibility with 1.0 or 2.0 USB devices. The standard goes back to the late 90s.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I'm a little surprised that the folks who designed USB 3.0 didn't see that coming and figure out a way to accommodate it. Perhaps it would break backward compatibility with 1.0 or 2.0 USB devices. The standard goes back to the late 90s.

In their defense, we were using HDD's that operated in the tens of GB's in the late 90's.
Now we're staring at drives in the tens of TB's.

The scale of HDD size has grown logarithmically over the past few years instead of linearly. It'd be very hard to see that coming.

 

[wagex]

It's a limitation of USB, not the device.
The 4TB drives exceed the maximum logical block number that USB supports.

this is false, there are 5 and 6tb usb external 3.0 drives ,and 12+tb usb storage arrays.

 

[Janus67]

then I wonder how something like this works:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...ffiliateID=WxHRncoD05Y-y5rmx3BMyDMkjBIJ6UwvBg

5TB USB3 drive. Probably has a controller onboard or something.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

this is false, there are 5 and 6tb usb external 3.0 drives ,and 12+tb usb storage arrays.

then I wonder how something like this works:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...ffiliateID=WxHRncoD05Y-y5rmx3BMyDMkjBIJ6UwvBg

5TB USB3 drive. Probably has a controller onboard or something.

Those do it by using a controller that fractionates the drive into smaller parts, allowing the bus to see all the drive.
That takes special drivers and sometimes software though.

 

[wagex]

Those do it by using a controller that fractionates the drive into smaller parts, allowing the bus to see all the drive.
That takes special drivers and sometimes software though.

 

[Janus67]

Thanks for doing the investigation!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Well, that's news to me, good to know though!

Guess the guy that explained it to me was wrong

 

[trents]

Those kind of adapters have been around for a long time. I've used them for several years. They are rather cumbersome because of need a power supply but are very versatile. They can be used for both notebook and desktop drives. The old one I have will do both SATA and PATA for both 3.25" and 2.5" drives.