External hard disk case - PATA, SATA or SATA-II

John_Gray

I would like to buy an external hard disk enclosure/case into which I could insert any of the disk types currently available at work, namely PATA, SATA or SATA-II, and be able to connect the resultant external disk via a USB2 interface to any computer. This would normally be for occasional debugging/data recovery/reformatting purposes for disks probably no more than 200 GB, and performance is pretty irrelevant.

Has anyone any suggestions of a case (and a supplier) which would enable me to put any one of these three disk types in? I can only find the (rare) one which will take PATA or SATA (but not SATA-II)...

Thanks

John

-TangleFoot-

The Wikipedia article on Serial ATA says:

To ensure seamless backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbit/s controllers and SATA 3.0 Gbit/s devices, the latter devices are required to support the original 1.5 Gbit/s rate.

In addition to which:

The 3.0 Gbit/s specification has been very widely referred to as “Serial ATA II” (“SATA II”), contrary to the wishes of the Serial ATA standards organization that authored it. The official website notes that SATA II was in fact that organization's name at the time, the SATA 3.0 Gbit/s specification being only one of many that the former SATA II defined, and suggests that “SATA 3.0 Gbit/s” be used instead. (The Serial ATA standards organization has since changed names, and is now “The Serial ATA International Organization”, abbreviated SATA-IO.) Most SATA drive and controller manufacturers also do not use the term “SATA II”.

In other words, if the enclosure supports both PATA and SATA, any 3.5" drive should do.