Hey everyone Patrik CK here with a showcase for the Weme hard drive adapter model MST-003.
I chose to showcase this little guy because I thought it was a cool piece of kit for the
mobile computer technician or even for the average Joe who may still have an IDE based
hard drive with important files on it but no compatible hardware anymore.
I’ve also never actually Adseen an adapter like this before so I was very curious to
see how it works, so I asked Weme if I could check one out and they shipped it over.
In the box you get the adapter itself, a short molex power cable for the 3.5inch IDE drives,
a 12V wall adapter, a USB 3.0 type A data cable, a user pamphlet, and a mini CD-ROM
for the one touch backup software, more on that in a moment.
The adapter it-self is deceptively simple looking but has quite a few features, on one
side is the full size IDE connector for the 3.5 inch hard drives, next is the smaller
IDE connector for the 2.5 inch IDE hard drives, then we have the SATA connector for either
3.5 or 2.5 inch SATA hard drives.
On top a power LED and the button that operates the one touch back up feature.
And along the back is the power switch, 12V power input, the USB 3.0 micro B connection,
and lastly the power out for the molex connection, this is used for hooking up a 3.5 inch IDE
hard drive, you simply use the provided molex cable, hooking the smaller connector into
the back of the adapter and the large end into the hard-drive once it’s slotted into
the adapter, it creates a very snug fit which I like.
One cool feature about this setup is that you can also connect IDE based CD and DVD
drives into the 3.5inch slot.
One thing to remember if you find yourself needing to hookup a 3.5 and 2.5 inch IDE drive
at the same time is the jumper selection.
If you’re not too familiar with the old school IDE hard drives, each drive has a little
area, usually, next to the data connection with a jumper that will indicate whether the
hard drive is the primary hard drive also known as the master or a secondary drive known
as a slave.
You just have to make sure that one drive is set to master and the other is set to the
slave drive.
Most drives of this type will have a diagram or some indication of where the jumper should
be positioned for the desired selection.
This old Western Digital drive has a diagram right on the label and also a simple legend
directly below the jumper area.
To move this jumper delicately remove it with a pair of tweezers and slide it to the desired
position.
With that in mind you can have up to three drives connected simultaneously making this
adapter quite versatile.
Whether you’re using IDE or SATA drives when you hook them up and power on the adapter
the LED indicator on top will turn blue and anything connected will appear alongside your
other drives ready to use.
I wanted to see what kind of performance you can get of this guy so I ran a few tests.
To best represent some real world transfers I created a 1.5gb package with almost 2000
files that consist of sizeable videos and a large hierarchy of smaller files like word
docs, spreadsheets, pictures, etc.
Running this file back and forth on an old Sandisk SSD slotted in place shows transfer
speeds of up to 180megabytes per second or 1.4gigbits per second, dropping near the end
as it hit all the smaller files.
Do not expect this kind of performance from an IDE drive.
I saw speeds maxing out at 54 megabytes per second which is actually surprising considering
the IDE standard calls for far slower speeds.
The mere fact that you can hook up an IDE drive to your computer without messing around
with old ribbon cables is amazing to me.
This on its own pays for itself, especially for those who need to pull data from these
old drives even if the computer they were originally attached to have long ago stopped
functioning.
I love this thing.
There is one more feature to that adds to this adapters versatility, that is the one
touch backup that I think is pretty unique from something so small.
It does take some additional software to setup which can either be installed from the mini
CD included or downloaded from Weme at the link below or directly from their product
page also at the link below.
To setup the one touch backup or OTB, install the software and follow these instructions:
1.
From the main OTB screen select the drive you want to copy the data to, the target.
2.
When a target drive is selected the backup configuration icon will be enabled, select
this icon.
3.
Check the box labeled ‘Set a original PC’ and select ‘Save’
4.
Next select the ‘OTB Path’ icon and choose which folders you want to backup, you can
choose an entire drive or individual folders from this screen, when your done with your
selections click ‘Save’.
5.
Review the ‘Options’ section, the ‘Check OTB Status’ option should be enabled by
default, if not check the box and this will ensure the backup function can be run by pressing
the button on top of the adapter.
You can also request a confirmation before starting a backup by checking the box next
to ‘Confirm before backup’.
This can help avoid any accidental backups.
With this super easy setup you can start backing up your most important files in less than
3 minutes.
If you enabled the ‘Check OTB Status’ then all you have to do when you want to back
up your files is to tap the button on top of the adapter and let it do its thing.
To restore data select the ‘Restore’ icon and follow these instructions
1.
You can either choose to restore back to the original folder that the data came from or
choose a custom location to restore to.
2.
Click the ‘Restore’ button to begin the process.
That wraps up my showcase of the WEme hard drive adapter, it is a great little companion
for anyone that needs to hook up older IDE drives without having to worry about compatible
hardware or ribbon cables.
Or someone just looking to pull archives without having to take a computer to get it and for
$20 you can’t go wrong.
As a special offer to my viewers you can get an additional 10% off when buying the adapter
on Amazon.
Discount code and link will be in the description.
This has been Patrik CK, like and share if you enjoyed this content, consider subscribing
to see more videos when they come out.
Hope to see you all next time, so long for now.