Rosewill RCW-618 USB to IDE / SATA Adapter - Supports Windows 7

Pros: Fits sata or ide

Cons: none so far

Overall Review: I needed this to Secure wipe a few SSD drives and while i was at it i had an old IDE drive with the family pictures on it i didnt think i would ever get them off as i dont have anything IDE anymore and this did just the trick. I now have them saved to a spare hard drive and burnt to a DVD drive. Arrived fast shipping has been great from newegg and i shipped them Eggsaver.

Pros: Once I got it working, the RCW-618 is fast and very convenient. The design of the power supply plugs are very slick.

Cons: It did not work out of the box. Like many other reviews, I just got a "USB Device" listed in my hard drives, but no recognition of an actual drive. Then, I tried it with another SATA cable, and it worked fine. So, the lesson is that the SATA cable might be poor quality. And related, the short SATA cable with the weird 90 degree plug is poor anyway. I would probably have dumped it regardless. This should come with a more normal, longer SATA cable.

Overall Review: Fix the SATA cable issue, and this will be an A+ product.

Pros: Very easy to use, no drivers needed for Win7, PNP 100%. Very intuitive device to use and logically built. Well packaged and the addition of silicon drive holders is a great plus. The on / off switch is brilliant and allows for quick changing of drives, even drive types. Worked on an old WD 120 IDE and a Segate Baracuda SATA 3.0 drive with no issues and transfer rate was good. Even allowed for formatting and partition changes.

Cons: None that I can see so far.

Overall Review: I have a SATA reader that sits on the desk and will only do one size drive and cost me $60 on sale. This device does it all with IDE, SATA.

Pros: Power switch! No seriously, this is a HUGE plus. Works 100% of the time, 2.5 of 3.5 inch drives. Tough, separate MOLEX and SATA connector. None of these adapters that are going to break.

Cons: Power cord to brick is a bit short (but is detachable). The SATA cable is small. Really small. Like the size of my pinky, maybe. No mini-SATA adapter. (Really, that's not a legit complaint, and get one from Newegg while yo're here.)

Overall Review: I've used many of these units, and this is by far my favorite. I've used several of this model myself, and given or purchased several of this model for others. Everybody loves these things. I've used, probably, over 100 drives with this. Drive cloning, data recovery, backups, copying data to new computers. Turn your old drive into a thumb drive. 2.5" IDE drives get power from the USB and on the extra 4 IDE pins. 3.5" IDE drives use the opposite side and the nice molded MOLEX connector on the PSU. 2.5 or 3.5" SATA drives use a standard SATA cable out the front, and the molded SATA power connecter daisy chained from the MOLEX with durable plastic further down the PSU's cord. As mentioned, plug everything in before flipping the power switch. Occasionally Windows will be picky, and you have to unplug-replug the usb to the host once the drive is spinning. For you guys having issues with this, make sure you're reading this on a glossy monitor, then turn the power off and stare. There's your problem.

Pros: Simple , Functional, Sleek Design, Does What It Says. You do "not need" to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out Beau. This is one first class piece of hardware. Did I mention functional ? That is to say the least. I ran this puppy thru its paces on Vista Business, Xp Pro/Sp3 and W2k/SP4. This little jewel performs flawlessly in all. No drivers needed;the disc is drivers for Win98. The sleeves for the HD's are a plus.Just make sure you set the drive to MASTER. I hooked it up to an"OLD" Conner IDE from a Packard Bell that still has Windows 386 Inhanced on it, a couple of other Western Digital IDE's and two laptop drives plus two SATA II drives. Formated, copied and transferred data. I can not believe anybody saying this is a piece of junk. They must have done something wrong like forced the plugs in backwards or something. Who knows? Better yet,who cares? This package has some of the best documentation I have ever seen. I am telling you this 'Gadget" "WORKS" Period.

Cons: 1) It's not free. 2) I did not get my hands on one of these sooner. 3) All of your friends will want to borrow this one. 4) The friends you say 'NO" to will be mad at you. 5) You get a migraine from all of the skullin your doing trying to come up with reasons to use this piece of technical genuis.

Overall Review: Rosewill should consider offering these rubber covers as extras and in different colors. I would buy a few for sure. Also they might throw in a couple or three of the small jumpers for the hard drives inside in case customer does not have them to set the drive to master. Add $.50 or $1.00 to the price. Your going to spend more than that trying to drive around and find them if you do not have them.

Pros: As one of the other reviews stated the power switch is very nice touch and is very useful. It means a lot to me to be able to switch the power off without having to unplug the power cord. I tested the device with a 2.5 " and 3.5" SATA drive and it worked just fine. One of the drives was a AFT formatted drive and it worked on that drive as well. I also tested a 3.5 inch IDE drive and it worked just fine too. The instructions said that you should set the options on the IDE drive to Master. However, I just left my drive set to cable select and it worked just fine. The rubber insulators completely surrounds the drive keeping you from accidentally shorting out your drive. This is a nice option for the novice to use, but I probably won't use them This is a very good product that is very reasonably priced. I don't feel like you could go wrong purchasing this adapter.

Cons: I wish that the unit had a slightly different design that would eliminate some of the cables. You basically have a power cable connected to your hard drive, a SATA cable connected to the adapter, and a power cable connecting the power supply with the electrical outlet. It would be nice if the adapter contained sockets for all of the drive types including the SATA. That way you could provide both the data and power connections through the adapter for the SATA drives instead of having to use all of the cables. You might still have to plug in the molex adapter to provide power for the IDE drives but that would be okay because you don't have a lot of those anymore so it would be an occasional thing . As it is you have so many pieces to keep up with that it would have been nice if a cloth bag would have been provided to keep everything together in it.

Overall Review: I tested the adapter on a machine running the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and the 32 bit version of Windows XP. On both systems the drives were identified immediately as will as the adapter. The driver disk isn't really needed unless you are running an earlier version of Windows. The adapter is very tiny. It is much smaller than I expected from looking at the picture on NewEgg but it works just fine and that is what counts.

Pros: Owned for 2 years, works great. Use it on hard drives all the time, never had a drive it wouldn't read. LED on power cord is helpful for ensuring safe connect/disconnect order.

Cons: SMART data isn't readable on connected drives, but I suspect this is an issue with connecting a drive via USB and the adapter has no control over it.

Overall Review: IDE drives require may require you to play with jumpers before they appear. Remember the proper connect/disconnect order!

Pros: Works perfectly as the product was listed.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Product worked great without any problems. I had purchased some previous SATA hard drive enclosures and had issues. I transferred about 300 GB of data all at the same time from a failing HDD and it worked like a charm.