ATA to SATA adapter?

[Greg the dogsitter]

Preliminary Googling seems to shows the possibility of adapting ATA/IDE hard drives for use in an SATA environment. Are there any drawbacks to this?

Thanks muchly,

GtDS

[MacMagus]

Early on, the adapters were cr@p and I wouldn't trust them, but the recent ones seem okay.

One issue that you might run into is that SATA drive cases and the Mac Pro's drive trays don't provide any extra room for the adapter.

[jimbrady]

I'd be hard to convince to do it, what with BIG SATA drives available under $100.

[The Grim Ninja]

They exist, but as mentioned, they won't fit in a Mac Pro. It's possible but unlikely they'll fit in a standard G5 drive bay.

The ones I've seen were around $30+ shipped.

You can buy a 400 GB SATA HD for $110 shipped.

It's really not worth it.

[Greg the dogsitter]

Darn. I thought that'd be a way to put the MDD drives into my new whatever-it-is. Thanks, all.

[The Grim Ninja]

That's why I started building this: http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/167917

I knew I wouldn't stay with my MDD forever and wanted a solution ready for when I did sell it so that I wouldn't have to buy new drives with a new system.

As mentioned there, the MDD died before I even got it halfway ordered. I'm still a bit bitter toward MDD systems for that.


I'd suggest you just buy the new drives though, rather than building the case.

2 x 400 GB = $220 and you just pop them right in your next system (If it's a Mac Pro. Obviously there would be a problem with the G5 as it only does 2 drives).