Got some extra disk drives? As hard disks and optical drives grow quickly in storage capacity and transfer speed, it's becoming more common to swap out drives, including 3.5" hard drives for desktops, 2.5" laptop disks, and 5.25" optical CD/DVD drives.
But whether you've swapped out a drive, or saved a drive from an old system, there's still the problem of how to access its contents, whether to extract some files or to reformat it before passing it on.
The NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter provides a great solution. It's a kit that connects up to external drives to connect them though USB to a computer.
Start with the adapter unit, and use the appropriate connectors and cables to connect it up to a variety of IDE, ATA, and SATA drives (including power). Then just hook it up to your computer like any other removable USB drive (with Windows 2000/XP, Mac OS 9.2 or higher, and Linux 2.4.X).
The new version of the adapter adds connection status LEDs to indicate connection and disk activity (USB, IDE/ATA, SATA). It's available for around $29.
See my Portable Storage Gallery for details and comparisons on memory cards, USB drives, and hard disk storage.