SATA Hard Drive Cradle. This 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA hard drive cradle is a very cool idea. Instead of faffing around installing an external hard drive on your computer, just plug this puppy into your USB port and drop a drive into it as needed. Simple, fast and very cheap clean. £22.50.
We are pleased to launch a new USB cradle that can accept 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives. The stylish and innovative design make it really easy to hot-swap SATA disks with ease. The cradle is so easy to use. Simply connect it to the USB port of your computer, and then ‘drop’ in a SATA hard drive. You can then access the data on the hard drive quicky and easily. This is a fabulous product for users who need to access and check the contents of numerous hard drives. Far easier than installing the hard drive interenally or in a caddy, the USB SATA Cradle is easy to use, convenient and practical.
I agree Red – great idea. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’m rushing out to get one now.
Hot-swapping is a nice feature, but unless you work in tech support or repair it’s not going to revolutionise your world. Also I have qualms about dropping or yanking something as delicate as a hard drive in and out of the cradle.
I don’t know Chris, I have a few different sized disks around which I’d like to put to good use. This makes it pretty easy for me to do that, and as long as I put the disks in carefully I’m thinking that they’ll last just fine. The one thing I would worry about though is the dirt and dust issue, but maybe that’s also not so big a deal??
I am not sure why the manufacturer went with a USB 2.0 interface. You really take a bandwidth hit by doing this. It would be a great device if the interface were eSATA. eSATA is 3Gbps (or 3072Mbps). USB 2.0 is about 1/10 of that bandwidth with (an effective) 320Mbps.
The USB 2.0 bandwidth is advertised at 480Mbps. In the case of USB 2.0, protocol overhead limits the maximum effective bandwidth to about two thirds of the USB’s physical signaling rate. Therefore, the effective rate reaches 320Mbps for bulk transfer on a USB 2.0 hard drive with no one else is sharing the bus.
Hey guys I am getting myself a new cradle eSATA HDD.. just been posted on the net.. hot hot hot!!
Aaron, isn’t it a case of maximum compatibility with the most machines out there? :-)
Good and surprisingly inexpensive, but I think I’ll wait for the eSATA interface version (by that time I should have bought and built my new PC).
Has anyone come across an eSata version of this cradle yet?
And if so, can you provide a link?