SATA to USB adaptor?

[VirtualLarry]

Similar to the SATA-to-IDE adaptor thread, do they make adaptors, that have a SATA interface to the host, and allow you to plug in a USB flash drive or external USB HD?

A device such as this would allow you to use a flash drive to install Windows onto.

Given the high prices of HDs, I am honestly surprised that we haven't seen something like this already.

Basically, it would be the reverse of the USB-to-SATA controller chipsets in enclosures.

Preferably USB3.0 now, since that has been out for a while now. I could live with Windows 7 installed onto a USB3.0 32GB flash drive, that would work great for me.

 

[exdeath]

You wouldn't want to use a thumb drive to run Windows. Only 1-2 NAND channels, etc, the real time random access time would be worse than a dino drive and it would stutter and lag like crazy.

Even the best and fastest thumb drives on the market (Ventura Pro, SuperSonic, etc) would not be suitable for running Windows.

 

[greenhawk]

Given the high prices of HDs, I am honestly surprised that we haven't seen something like this already.

only a temp issue due to flooding. Though the external HDD are cheaper currently as there was probably more stock around before the floods than the internal drives. With time the externals would have risen in price as well as they have a normal HDD inside of them in most situations.

As to something similar to what you want, some good motherboard chip-sets allow you to do what you want without extra hardware. Those chipsets that have a inbuilt USB host controllers have the option to boot from what is called USB-Floppy and USB-HDD. Not exactly sure on how they differ, but the bios then displays the attached USB drive as if it was on a floppy or normal HDD controller.

 

[Shmee]

they esata powered to Sata + sata power adapters for laptop drives. This might help if you have an esata-p port and an ssd and dont want to deal with external enclosures.

http://www.amazon.com/eSATA-Combo-Po...ref=pd_sim_e_2

 

[bradley]

they esata powered to Sata + sata power adapters for laptop drives. This might help if you have an esata-p port and an ssd and dont want to deal with external enclosures.

http://www.amazon.com/eSATA-Combo-Po...ref=pd_sim_e_2

I didn't even know these existed, not that it complicated tech. Still we live in great times -- when there's almost a solution for every problem. It just takes some initiative.

 

[anikhtos]

http://www.addonics.com/products/adsau3rm.php

there is from addonics

 

[Cerb]

http://www.addonics.com/products/adsau3rm.php

there is from addonics

That's the other direction from what the OP was describing. With $40 SSDs, I don't get why you would want to bother converting. A converter that actually handled USB mass storage would probably cost nearly that of a cheap SSD.

On top of that, there are OSes out there that will happily run straight from USB, if you want to use a thumb drive for some reason.