Rosewill RC-203 SATA to IDE Mini Vertical Bridge (for SATA device)

Pros: It does what it's supposed to, even with large drives. I'm using it with a 1.5TB Seagate drive on an old computer.

Cons: Every so often, it comes unmounted in the OS. A reboot fixes the problem. It's kind of annoying, but you probably wouldn't notice the problem if you're using it in a computer that is restarted frequently.

Other Thoughts: Definitely worth it if you want to use just one SATA hard drive on an older computer. If you need more than one drive, get a controller card.

Pros: Reasonable price. Excellent packaging. Good documentation. Easy to install. Works as advertised.

Cons: Fit on SATA side isn't exactly snug. I feel it could easily come loose if board is bumped or cable is tugged.

Two tech support requests resulted in conflicting info (see "other thoughts" below for details).

Other Thoughts: Be sure to read the instructions. I couldn't help but wonder if some of the problems that other users experienced were due to not setting the Master/Slave jumper properly.

Re: my Tech Support experience... I got conflicting info from Rosewill while trying to troubleshoot 2 new 1.5 TB hard drive's SMART reporting a major drop in "Seek Error" health.

I sent an e-mail asking if the board could have any effect on a drives SMART operations. 4 days later I got a reply saying the problem was probably that their board doesn't support drives above 1 TB in size.

A phone call asking the same question got me to an engineer who said the board has no effect on a drive's internal monitoring. Re: the HD size the board itself has no limit, but the current operating systems max out at 2 TB's per partition. He suggested trying another brand of hard drive.

I did and it's running fine. I attribute the seek errors to a faulty batch (or bad design) of the new 3-platter 1.5 TB Barracuda's.

Pros: Had to get an older computer a new hard drive, easiest way was to order this part and it works BEAUTIFULLLY, very small, power connector included, everything you need to avoie a headache.

Cons: kinda felt fragile, but hey, it's a computer component afterall

Pros: No pros. It simply didnt work.

Cons: All my internal SATA ports were used up, so I needed this device to work. But it didn't. I bought a new LG Bluray DVD player/burner model GGW-H20L, which has a SATA port. I used the working IDE cable(from the Asus motherboard), connected it to this RC203, and then the other side to the DVD drive. Nothing. All I got was erratic behavior, and it could not see the drive. And the drive and cable were proven fine. So, I had to RMA this and send it back.

Other Thoughts: It's incredibly disappointing when a device only has to do one basic thing---translate a IDE signal to SATA---and fails at that one thing.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you. We try to provide the most reliable products to our customers. The problem you are having might be caused by a defective unit. This could be causing the adapter to not see the DVD drive. We would be more than happy to replace this unit for you. Please email us at rma@rosewill.com for your replacement. We look forward to hear from you soon.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Works great, and even adds an extra molex connector.

Cons: none yet, it's just very fragile. Like a kitten.

Other Thoughts: Holding my system over until i get the money for a Mobo/CPU/RAM.

If you have problems with this, remember there's a jumper with a little M and an upside down S, for master and slave. You'll save alot of time not having two masters on at the same time trying to prioritize each one over the other.

Pros: Works as advertised. Plug n play.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Molex adapter is properly labeled with numbers. Just match the numbers and you are done. I don't understand how "experienced" users are messing it up.

Pros: Great Idea. Excellent way to add some life to my old PC.

Cons: Paging Errors. Verrrry slow. Technically, this works. I was able to clone my primary drive and boot from the new one on the PATA cable. BUT, any large file would bring the system screeching to a crawl.

I found Paging errors in the event viewer, the likely culprit. I switched back to the old drive and put the new one on a SATA connection (unfortunately not bootable) and didn't have the errors, no slowdowns either.

Too bad.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you. We try to provide the most reliable products to our customers. The problem you are having might be caused by a defective unit. We would be more than happy to replace this unit for you. Please email us at rma@rosewill.com for your replacement. We look forward to hear from you soon.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: does what it says.
Standard Sata plug design.

Cons: Very slow with my xbox. I tried setting the drive to 1.5 but it seemed to do better set at 3.0gbps I received .356 - 7.2 MBPS on a seagate 7200 attached thru the device to an xbox 1. an average PATA 7200RPM drive on an xbox 1 gets about 12.5MBPS so I am confused. Between the 1.5gbps and the already capable UATA controller I should see same or faster results.

Other Thoughts: paired with seagate drive maybe should of gotten a different brand.

Pros: Cheap. Seems to work perfectly for secondary (non-boot) drives. Problem with loose connectors seems to be fixed now, the connectors on mine are really tight. Fits a 2.5" drive, in case you're wondering.

Cons: Jumper diagram in the manual is illegible. Having trouble getting the system to boot off a drive attached to it. Not sure yet if it's the fault of the adapter, the drive I'm trying to use with it, or the computer I'm trying to use it in.

Other Thoughts: Be sure to download the PDF version of the manual from Rosewill's web site to see a clear jumper diagram. I'm trying to use this adapter to put an SSD in an older desktop PC, so I did expect to have to fiddle with it at least a little. I had hoped it would be less work than installing a SATA card and reinstalling Windows from scratch, but I'm starting to wonder now.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you. We try to provide the most reliable products to our customers. The problem you are having might be caused by the Bios setting. Please check to make sure that the Bios sees the drive and that the boot priority is setup correctly. If you are still having problems, please give us a call at 800-575-9885 so we may further assist you. If you are in need of a replacement, we would be more than happy to replace this unit for you. Please email us at rma@rosewill.com for your replacement. We look forward to hear from you soon.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Very simple to install and it works. I recently bought a new dvd burner and didn't realize the difference between SATA and IDE and bought the wrong one. This device provided a simple (albeit expensive seeing that it cost as much as the burner) fix. Newegg rocks as always.

Cons: I'm the kind of person that would rather pay $20 than return something.

Other Thoughts: I like packaging peanuts.