Avoid USB-to-SATA adapters if at all possible.
However, if you absolutely have to use one, there are some important considerations.
All of the following only applies to hard drives and SATA SSDs of reasonable size.
USB thumbdrives are a different device category.
NVMe drives and NVMe-to-USB adapters are different again.
Avoid USB-to-SATA if at all possible
If at all possible, avoid using a USB-to-SATA adapter in the first place.
If the drive is defective in some way, recovery from a bad block can be effectively impossible with some adapters.
The adapter adds a layer of complexity that you don't need when things are already going wrong.
The problem is the bridge chip inside the adapter.
How well it handles errors is inconsistent and undocumented.
Some chipsets will retry a bad sector a reasonable number of times and move on;
others will hang for a very long time on a single bad read, or drop the drive entirely.
None of this is written on the package or anywhere else.
There is a difference in error handling between USB transfer modes.
The older
BOT
mode is better than the newer
UAS
(also called
UASP),
as far as error handling goes.
However, the modes are typically not switchable, so the point is moot.
Absolutely avoid external USB hubs. Just don't. That's another layer of complexity you don't need.
USB 2 vs. USB 3 speeds
The inflection point on usability is between USB 2 and USB 3.
- USB 2 (and below - USB 1.1) speed is not acceptable for data recovery work.
- USB 3 (and above - USB4) speeds are fine.
There are multiple versions of USB 3 - 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 - any of these work.
I will not differentiate between USB 3 variants further on.
To actually get USB 3 speed,
the port, the adapter, and the cable all have to support USB 3.
If any one of the three is only USB 2, the whole setup drops to USB 2 speed.
The port and the connector are easy to tell apart at a glance: black or white means slow (USB 1 or USB 2),
while a colored connector or port means you're good to go, regardless of which color it is.
It doesn't matter if the colors don't match between the connector and the port.
Cables
Cables are a bigger issue than they should be.
The USB standard defines an unpleasant number of cable combinations,
but has no requirement that cables be labeled for what they actually support.
Cables differ in power they can deliver and data speeds they support,
and there's no way to tell just by looking.
A very common thing is a blue USB-A to USB-C cable that delivers plenty of power, but only supports USB 2 data speeds.
These are typically sold as "charging cables" and are not suitable.
You can tell if the USB-C cable is wired for USB 3 by looking inside the connector.
It may be difficult to get a proper angle, and you may need a flashlight.
The proper connector has all 24 pins wired, as illustrated below.
USB-C connectors - fully wired (top) and limited to USB 2 speed (bottom).
| Good |  |
|---|
| Bad |  |
|---|
If you're using a USB-to-SATA adapter, the cable that came in the box with it is usually fine.
Anything you bought separately or had already lying around usually isn't.
Power
Power is the other important requirement.
- SATA SSDs are usually fine on single-port USB 3 power.
- 2.5" laptop-variety HDDs require at least Y-powered setup, preferably a separate power supply.
- 3.5" HDDs require an adapter with its own power supply.
Some USB-to-SATA adapters come as a Y-adapter, with two USB connections - one colored and one white or black.
On these, the colored connection carries high-speed data, and the other one is for power only.
It doesn't matter which port the power side plugs into, but the colored (high-speed data)
connector needs to go into the colored (high-speed) port.
Do not use Y-adapters with 3.5" hard drives.
Miscellaneous considerations
Many USB-to-SATA bridges don't pass S.M.A.R.T. data through.
If you need S.M.A.R.T. data, check the readout against a known drive first.
Make sure the adapter does not overheat in prolonged use.
The data recovery involves sustained reads at maximum speeds for a long time.
On overheat, some adapters will throttle speed, others will drop the drive, and yet others will glitch in spectacular ways.
Testing your setup
Before starting data recovery, put in a known-good disk of the same type (i.e. SSD for SSD, HDD for HDD),
start a disk image, and watch the throughput.
- USB 2 speeds are about or below 40 MB/sec.
- USB 3 speed should be higher than 100 MB/sec, for both hard drives and SSDs.
Filed under:
Disk imaging,
USB.
Created
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