Pros: Excellent hardware and software that you can backup and restore.
Cons: There is no shut off power switch button, and you can't backup selective files.
The Bottom Line: It is easy and simple to use. It can save you lots of problems in trouble shooting. And it is worth it because it came with software that works great.
stse's Full Review: Apricorn DriveWire IDE/PATA/SATA to USB Adapter (A...
Introduction
If you are looking for solution to backup your drive, clone your drive or even recover your hard drive, this may be the answer. This product work from different type of hard drive from Sata to IDE, laptop or desktop. The following is the what come with the box. 1. DriveWire 2. Apricorn Upgrade Suite includes: Windows - EZ GIG II Macintosh Shirtpocket 3. USB cable 4. AC Adapter 5. Quick Start Guide
Drive Wire - This is the brain of the whole thing. Without it, you have nothing. ( Well you still have the software. You can copy the software, but not the hardware) Basically this thing is about 2 1/2 inches by 2 inches in size. It can connect to any 2.5" , 3.5" IDE/PATA or SATA Hard Drive.
Apricorn Upgrade Suite - This is a must if you want to clone, backup your drive. Of course, if you don't use their software, you can use the USB cable to connect to your drive as if you have external hard drive. Since I am not an apple user, I will not have much knowledge of how to use the apple software. But for windows, the upgrade suite is pretty cool and handy. Detail will be elaborated later. USB CABLE -It is USB 1.1 compatible for this USB 2.0 cable.
Power/AC Adapter - ac input for US is 100-240vac/1.2a and the DC output is 5v
Quick Start Guide - A book that shows you the operation of usig this device. Basically, you do not need a book. It is very simple and easy to use.
Who should be using it
Before telling you why I like this product, I recommend this one to those who have older computers, drives that they don't want to destroy. This device basically can connect to your hard drives whether they are IDE or SATA. Just plug in the cable to the drive, and you will see the drive popped up in your Windows. Whether you are tech savvy, or you are regular computer user, get this one just in case you have a need to do drive mapping, recovery or cloning.
Operations
If you want to just connect to a drive pulled from your desktop or laptop. it is pretty easy. First, dismount your drives from desktop or laptop computers. Well, in this case, you need to be a little handy on this, you need to open the case, unscrew a couple of screws for you laptop and/or open the case and unplug your 3.5" hard drive.
Bring it out and hook it to the DriveWire, there is a slot for power. There is a cable coming out from the Drivewire to power up the external hard drive. Make sure you connect to that. The green light will be on if the power of Drivewire is plugged in, and if the drive is still in good condition, you should be able to see the drive populated in your Windows. Then you can use it as an external drive.
Use of the APRICORN UPGRADE SUITE or they called EZ GIG II
You need to install the CD if you want to do the following.
Backup - You can backup enter drive to another external drive. In this case, you don't need the Drivewire. The Drivewire is like gateway to your external hard drive. The software itself is pretty good. When doing backup, you can backup certain partition and/or entire hard drive. However, you can not select certain files to backup. The backup can be compressed or normal. Of course, compressed will consume more time. For a 4 gig drive space, it may take about 20 - 30 mins to backup. It various depending on the CPU and the computer itself.
The backup extension is .TIB. I don't think the other image software will be able to restore this file. So, do yourself a favor, make a copy of your original CD just in case.
Recovery - This actually means restore your hard drive. However, in this case you can restore entire hard drive, or portion of it. The portion of it can be partition or some files you back up. Basically that will pull from the image you back up. The recovery time will be approximately the same as backup time (if you want to get the whole image restored)
Clone Disk - This will enable you clone your current drive to external drive (any external drive that plugs in the USB), Of course, it is suggested that you boot it off from the Apricorn Cd (boot-able), then you can clone your disk.
Add New Disk - This is similar operation to clone disk. But not cloning the disk. Basically this function will not be used for many people. Under Tools Explore and Validate Backup Archives - This will take longer time if you do this
Logs - You can view operation log on your computer. It can give you date, time and what you have done in terms of backup and restore.
Create Boot-able Rescue Media - Either make a copy of your CD or do this will enable you to reboot from CD and load the software directly.
Advanced Operation or Reminder of things you need to know
If you have an image file stored anywhere in the external drive, you can just run the software to restore your files.
Any time you need to write over (backup or restore) the entire drive, you must boot it from the CD. Restoring individual files is not necessarily to boot it up the CD although you can do so as well.
Why I like this product
I like it because it is like killing two birds with one stone.
1. The hardware itself acts like gateway to your old or unused external drive. You have unused, ancient or old hard drive and yet those drives are not usb drives, but with this DriveWire, you can make it as USB drive.
2. Excellent Software - I use this to backup my drive, files to another external drive. By the way, I have an 1 TB drive, with this software, I can save the entire image on my usb external drive, and any time I have virus attack which I had trouble fixing it. With this software, restoring it may be quicker than finding a way to fix all the serious spy-ware/virus.
3. Portable - I can bring those two. Hardware/Software or Drivewire/EZ gig II with me. It is so convenient to fix laptop and desktop problem. Very often you will see a file is missing or corrupted from you laptop. You pull the laptop drive out and plug it into this DriveWire and becomes external drive. You can copy the correct file over the laptop drive, then put it back. And trouble shooting is lot easier than before.
4. Price - Less than $40 bucks, I think it is a steal! You can reuse your old drives, and may be saving lots of time as well.
Improvement needed
I do find two slight improvements that are needed.
1. Hardware - It has now on and off switch button. You must manually unplug the power cord to shut it down. Adding a switch may make user feel safer in some way.
2. Software - If only I can back up select files, then this will be flawless.
Conclusion
Over all, this product is excellent. Hardware itself is a gateway to your external hard drive. Software itself is menu driven and can be used without the hardware. Even you don't need the hardware potion, the software portion of it will make you happy. And it is vice verse You can use either hardware or software to fit your need. It is like bring two things in one price. I recommend this product strongly.
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