[citation][nom]husker[/nom]Oh, is that all. When I read the headline I thought it was a wireless device that could "spy" on drives without physically connecting.[/citation]
Lolwut? I saw the title and thought "ah ok, some kind of dock that reads hard drives and memory cards". Maybe that was just me.
$39.99 so I can connect the 10 ide hard drives that I have sitting in a drawer and finally get my old files copied over from past years ! This product I really like
I have one of their old standard SATA/IDE device, it works really well. I use it to attach a DVD drive to my netbook (a lot cheaper than buying a USB DVD drive). I also had to use it at work one time because we needed to get files off a broken machine, but that machine used IDE and all the new machines were SATA.
I never tried using SATA and IDE at the same time but its cool that it supports it.
At this stage it should have eSATA and maybe USB 3.0 (instead of USB 2.0). Does anyone seriously think running an IDE and SATA drive at the same time on a single USB 2.0 port will provide even halfway-decent speed?
That said, this could be useful for the computer repairman who wants one device to read and write to just about any digital storage medium and doesn't care about doing so at blazing fast speeds.
This kind of device is not new, but add in a card reader and now its a new toy. I do not think the price is too bad for something to keep at your work bench or even use with you laptop.
I see no news in this. I've seen quite a few adapters of this kind for a while now. For example cooldrives.com has similar options going for about the same price.
USB 3 and eSATA would be a waste right now since the vast majority of systems out there right now don't have either.
This device is designed for the "repairman" type use, not the "hook it up to a Netbook" type use. Though hooking up a DVD drive through a $40 multi-used device deserves a "Frugal Computing" award since it is cheaper than buying a new USB DVD drive. Many of us have an old DVD drive lying around already or you can buy one used for a few bucks.
When I checked Newegg this morning they didn't have this product. I sent an e-mail suggesting they carry it. Can't wait to pick one up for less than the $40 MSRP which IMHO is reasonable. This device may not have been released in the US yet.
What is new about this device is that it handles BOTH drives AND cards AND has extra USB ports.
If you've never checked out Scythe's product line do so. I just spotted this interesting item: