I have an USB-SATA/IDE adapter, such as this one:
Since it was a cheap product from China, the power supply that was included in the packaging no longer provides enough power to spin up a disk. I remember that back in the day, the 2.5" drives only needed the mini-IDE to work, so one did not have to connect the power supply. Since I do not really need to connect any 3.5" disks to my computer and the power supply is most likely a fire hazard even if I manage to fix it (I suspect the caps, though they are looking OK), I'm wondering if it's possible to power the disks from the USB port, old-school style.
Here's what I found on eBay though. It appears to be an adapter which might solve my problem.
It seems to provide the power as well, so this would be perfect. However, there does not appear to be much going on on the board, so I am skeptical about the product. So here are my questions:
- Should this even work?
- Will it provide all three voltages (3.3V, 5V, 12V) required by the SATA spec or is it just some kind of a 5V-only hack that works on a small subset of disks?
I know the questions are not very specific, but neither is the product description. I can try to expand on the question somehow if you let me know in the comments.
Best Answer
These sorts of adapters, those without an external power supply, are typically designed only for 2.5" drives and smaller. The smaller drives require much less power, and typically run off a single 5V supply.
The reason that the adapter you picture doesn't have a supply is that it has a 44pin mini-IDE connector which includes +5V/GND on the extra 4 pins (on top of normal 40pin IDE). A 2.5" drive would be happily powered from such a converter because it wouldn't require the extra rails you question about (*).
The power requirements are much higher for 3.5" drives than these and similar adapters are designed for. Additionally the 3.5" drives will require 12V for the much large motors that are used, and these adapters will not produce that voltage rail. This is why your USB adapter can't spin up the drive (nor would the IDE/SATA pictured).
As you are interested in only 2.5" drives, such adapters will be workable, they will provide the necessary voltage rails.
For 3.5" drives (and any drive in fact) I would suggest getting a module to add an eSATAp connector to your computer. You can get drive bay modules and PCIe modules that allow you to connect an external drive via this port. The nice thing about the eSATAp variety is that it also provides 12V and 5V power rails, so you can get an passive cable to convert eSATAp to SATA+Power. It also doubles as a USB port when not needed for SATA.
(*) Having said that the adapter appears to have a linear regulator for regulating a 3.3V rail. But this still wouldn't get a 12V rail so wouldn't help connect a 3.5" HDD for those who need such a use case.