pata disc / sata host converters

[Chris Murphy]

On Jan 14, 2014, at 6:12 AM, Ian Malone <ibmalone at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking at a motherboard update and have apparently left it too
> long: it's hard to find new MBs that have PATA connectors (there are a
> few, but choice is pretty limited). The hard drives for this machine
> are SATA, but the optical drives are PATA. There are a few PATA to
> SATA converters which basically plug onto the back of the drive and
> provide a SATA connection. Anyone tried these and found any issues in
> Linux?

I haven't tried it. I'd make sure that ATAPI is supported in whatever you buy because chances are that's the protocol the optical drives use. But then, why would these things even exist if they didn't support ATAPI, I'm not sure.

> It's not too dear to buy new optical drives, but I've got two and it
> seems a bit wasteful to throw them out when they in good condition.
> (Actually, given how cheap new ones are I wonder if they're better
> quality anyway.)

How often are you using this thing? I'd probably put it on a shelf and forget about it, and get a PATA-IDE-SATA-USB adapter if I do, and run a molex cable for power externally for power. Just stick the thing on top of the existing computer for the hour you'll use it. If you have any PATA hard drives you can use this adapter to suck the data off of them also.


Chris Murphy