[citation][nom]christoi[/nom]At that price, a CPU, motherboard and RAM upgrade may be a better choice. Something like a G530, ASRock H61M-VS and 4GB RAM would be much better (costs ~$120).[/citation]
It absolutely is, except that this drive is the 2.5" format for laptops, you'll notice in the picture there's no 4pin molex connector. This is the only reason this thing would make sense since....
a regular sata interface can be adapted to pata with a cheap adapter and vice versa. like this:
http://www.meritline.com/ide-to-sata-or-sata-to-ide-adapter---p-36542.aspx
Eliminating the need for a specialized product like this.
This would only be useful for laptops, since it should carry a price premium for being a niche product, and the fact that it would physically fit in the laptop where there are space constraints.
Again bad idea. Since you'll typically be way better off just buying a new laptop, since laptops are cheap and your pata equiped laptop is practically obsolete by now, anyway.