• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Internal USB to SATA adaptor

Lazzer408

Lazzer408

Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Messages
2,555 (0.40/day)
Location
Illinois
System Specs
Processor i7 2600k@4.6ghz
Motherboard MSI z68ma-ed55
Cooling Silentx Extreem 120mm
Memory 2x4gb XMS 7-8-7-20 1600
Video Card(s) HD6870
Storage 2x128gb Kingston Hyper-X (Raid0), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1)
Display(s) Soyo 24", Gateway 22"
Case Fractal Design Arc Mini 6x120mm fans.
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Zalman 750w
Software Windows 7
Has anyone ever seen an adaptor that can be connected to a motherboard's USB header to support a SATA hard drive?

Long story short I'm out of SATA ports. I was thinking of maybe modding something like this.
http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-SATA-Ad...044?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0e6a5cdc

I could unsolder the USB port and solder on a 6" or so cable with a 4-pin connector to fit the mobo. It would be easier to just buy one if I knew where to find things like that.
 
C

Completely Bonkers

New Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Messages
2,576 (0.41/day)
System Specs
Processor Mysterious Engineering Prototype
Motherboard Intel 865
Cooling Custom block made in workshop
Memory Corsair XMS 2GB
Video Card(s) FireGL X3-256
Display(s) 1600x1200 SyncMaster x 2 = 3200x1200
Software Windows 2003
Before you go any further, are you aware that the HDD mounted through such a USB device will be significantly slower than a native SATA. If you are out of ports, I would recommend getting a PCI or PCIe SATA controller. At least your HDDs will run at full speed, and you can have write cache. Whereas, write cache over USB is not the way to go. And with an "external USB device" autoplay will kick in and antivirus will scan it on every boot (default settings).
 
Lazzer408

Lazzer408

Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Messages
2,555 (0.40/day)
Location
Illinois
System Specs
Processor i7 2600k@4.6ghz
Motherboard MSI z68ma-ed55
Cooling Silentx Extreem 120mm
Memory 2x4gb XMS 7-8-7-20 1600
Video Card(s) HD6870
Storage 2x128gb Kingston Hyper-X (Raid0), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1)
Display(s) Soyo 24", Gateway 22"
Case Fractal Design Arc Mini 6x120mm fans.
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Zalman 750w
Software Windows 7
Completely Bonkers said:
Before you go any further, are you aware that the HDD mounted through such a USB device will be significantly slower than a native SATA. If you are out of ports, I would recommend getting a PCI or PCIe SATA controller. At least your HDDs will run at full speed, and you can have write cache. Whereas, write cache over USB is not the way to go. And with an "external USB device" autoplay will kick in and antivirus will scan it on every boot (default settings).
Click to expand...

Yes I know. It's a mini ITX chassis and the board only has 2 SATA ports one x16 slot that has a videocard in it. The DVD and HDD are both SATA. I put an SSD drive in it for the OS and the extra SATA port would be for holding media. I've never had any problems playing movies off a USB drive so I figured it's my only solution. It's prettier to stuff it inside then an external enclosure would be.
 
newtekie1

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,472 (4.24/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
System Specs
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
Jstn7477

Jstn7477

Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
4,012 (0.75/day)
Location
Sarasota, Florida, USA
System Specs
System Name Awesomesauce 4.3 | Laptop (MSI GE72VR 6RF Apache Pro-023)
Processor Intel Core i7-5820K 4.16GHz 1.28v/3GHz 1.05v uncore | Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 3.1GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5 WiFi LGA2011-v3| Stock
Cooling Corsair H100i v2 w/ 2x EK Vardar F4-120ER + various 120/140mm case fans | Stock
Memory G.Skill RJ-4 16GB DDR4-2666 CL15 quad channel | 12GB DDR4-2133
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1080 Ti Hybrid SC2 11GB @ 2012/5151 boost | NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB +200/+500 + Intel 530
Storage Samsung 840 EVO 500GB + Seagate 3TB 7200RPM + others | Kingston 256GB M.2 SATA + 1TB 7200RPM
Display(s) Acer G257HU 1440p 60Hz AH-IPS 4ms | 17.3" 1920*1080 60Hz wide angle TN notebook panel
Case Fractal Design Define XL R2 | MSI
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster Z | Realtek with quad stereo speakers and subwoofer
Power Supply Corsair HX850i Platinum | 19.5v 180w Delta brick
Software Windows 10 Pro x64 | Windows 10 Home x64
Lazzer408

Lazzer408

Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Messages
2,555 (0.40/day)
Location
Illinois
System Specs
Processor i7 2600k@4.6ghz
Motherboard MSI z68ma-ed55
Cooling Silentx Extreem 120mm
Memory 2x4gb XMS 7-8-7-20 1600
Video Card(s) HD6870
Storage 2x128gb Kingston Hyper-X (Raid0), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1), 2x750gb RE3 (RAID1)
Display(s) Soyo 24", Gateway 22"
Case Fractal Design Arc Mini 6x120mm fans.
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Zalman 750w
Software Windows 7
newtekie1 said:
It might not be as pretty as soldering and all that, but why not just grab one of these with the USB to SATA adapter you were looking at?

StarTech USBMBADAPT 6" USB A Female to USB Motherb...
Click to expand...

Thats close but for $9 I'll solder it. :D

Jstn7477 said:
Great suggestion. Either that or if your board has an eSATA port, you could try to loop the cable back onto the case using an eSATA to SATA cable.
Click to expand...

Yes I just checked and it DOES have an esata port. I forgot all about that. Who's going to see it back there right?
 
Geofrancis

Geofrancis

Joined
Mar 12, 2009
Messages
1,079 (0.20/day)
Location
SCOTLAND!
System Specs
System Name Machine XV
Processor Dual Xeon E5 2670 V3 Turbo unlocked
Motherboard Kllisre X99 Dual
Cooling 120mm heatsink
Memory 64gb DDR4 ECC
Video Card(s) RX 480 4Gb
Storage 1Tb NVME SSD
Display(s) 19" + 23" + 17"
Case ATX
Audio Device(s) XFi xtreme USB
Power Supply 800W
Software Windows 10
i am going to do the same idea as you for my itx server. i have 2 onboard sata plus a 4 port pci-e controller but i need more. i have already got the internaly mounted laptop dvd-rw running into the usb and all my data goes over 100mbit ethernet so aslong as you are not in a hurry to copy a few Tb's of data usb is fine.

i couldnt find an esata cable that would sit nice. it always looked a but ugly.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top