APRICORN ADW-USB-KIT IDE/PATA/SATA to USB HDD Adapter

Pros: I have owned 2 of these now and they work like a champ. The first one was lost and the second replaced it. The connections are sturdy and fit well. The imaging software that comes with it works well too.

Cons: There have been a couple times it acts funny with IDE. I found plugging in the HDD power and then the USB cable helps. The software that was included in the first one change from the one that came in the second. It has a little less functionality but it can still image.

Pros: Have had this for a week but have already imaged a couple dozen drives. Also use to wipe old drives before sending the PCs for donation. Operation is FLAWLESS. Super sweet bonus is that the included EZ GIG II software is a re-branded version of Acronis TrueImage.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: Wish it came with a carrying case, or at least in a cardboard box instead of the blister pak.

Pros: Price, Performance, Free cloning software. This does connect to 2.5/3.5 PATA & SATA drives. Works flawlessly.

Cons: The power cord connector isn't very long, but when it's on a workbench you want a short cable, so no con.

Overall Review: Easily cloned a 2.5 PATA laptop hard drive that contained unrecoverable data onto a new 2.5 PATA drive. If you own a computer shop or repair laptops/desktops buy a few of these, they are incredible and highly recommended.

Pros: Wow, what a outstanding device. Cloning a laptop HD drive for me has never been easier. Had to clone a full 80GB SATA hd on a dell 1505 which took 1.25 hours to accomplish. the software is very intuative also. Lets you specifically set new partition size paramaters to the new HD and also makes suggestions for settings for those first time users out there. The construction is very good and solid Also the simplicity of making a clone drive through a USB port is a big plus!!!!

Cons: It doesn't play music while cloning? :)

Overall Review: For the user below and for other users leaving the comment about the LED light. You have to connect the new HD, connect the USB cable to the PC and then start the PC in order for the light to go on. Or also can be be a defective unit but the light didnt go on for me also until i plugged everything in and started up the PC.

Pros: Does exactly what it says it will do. Just follow the software instructions and it should work every time. Cloned my 80Gb Toshiba A135-S4666 with Vista Home Basic onto a 160Gb drive in under 1 hour, no problems experienced and it's been about 3 weeks as of this review date. Again, works with Vista!

Cons: No case to place the components in for storage or travel.

Overall Review: The software is similar to Acronis True Image. From Apricorn: They were both written by the same developer. EZ GIG II version 10 and Acronis version 10 are similar builds. You can check the build number (Help/About) to see which one is the newer build. The newer the build, the more support for new controllers and other hardware.

Pros: If you're an IT person you will appreciate this device. If you're an end-user just looking for a way to add external storage you'll be disappointed by the "ugliness" of this device. I'm an IT person and am constantly needing to hook up external drives for malware/virus removal, ghosting, etc. This is the all in one device to get the job done.

Cons: None!

Overall Review: I don't use this device as a permanent external storage device. I use it short term to get the job done and move on. I've tested all three inputs and they work great. Big time saver and nice tool to have in the drawer.

Pros: Has worked on an old 30gig IDE and my original 160 gig in my laptop. I puchased a 320 gig SATA150 to repaldce my 160 with an external enclosure. From hooking up the bare 320 through the SW install in my OS (WinVistaUlt)and stopping to partition the drive, to the OS copy and HD swap I upgraded my Gateway laptop from 160gig (149 real) to 320gig (298 real) in <90 minutes from hook up to screwdriver down and boot! This puppy never complained. It copied my multiple users and domain logins and blinding (for usb2) speed; the boot up was spooky it was so smooth, to see all my stuff and not have to reload *everything* was just.. well.. spooky. This will make work so much smoother on checking bare drives in my lab; so much so the boss is asking what they need to do to get 10 more!

Cons: Oh man, this con is soooo minor, it won't report an uninitialized drive from the CD boot. It's why I booted to the OS and isntalled the SW from there, I could have easily initialized the drive on a different box. Might try that sometime.

Overall Review: LOVE the image feature to OR FROM the external drive. I'll need to confirm it works FROM an initialized drive (that contains a backup) to the internal on a laptop soon. If that is as easy as my upgrade was the boss will buy me lunch!

Pros: I bought this kit to upgrade my Toshiba laptop PATA hard drive and although the adapter works well and is also compatible with SATA and IDE drives, the cloning software supplied with the kit failed to clone my original drive properly. I made several attempts with and without the 'custom' mode and got the 'Congratulations' screen every time, but when I installed the drive, the boot up sequence gets stuck with a blinking cursor after the Toshiba splash screen. Fortunately, I was able to find an older version of the EZ Gig II cloning program which worked fine.

Cons: The included cloning software is useless.