Clone older hard drive over USB 2

Question

I am trying to upgrade the hard drive in an old work laptop (Acer Aspire running Windows 10), but I'm having trouble getting the data onto the new drive (7200 rpm SATA 6).

I'm following this article about how to clone a hard drive then boot from it. Seems simple enough, but the issue is that you need a way to have both hard drives plugged in at the same time so you can clone the data from one to the other. They recommend using a SATA/USB adapter, but I'm not sure that the new hard drive I purchased will be adequately powered by a USB 2.0 connection. The box says it requires 5V and 800ma. My understanding is that USB 2.0 can only provide 500ma.

I don't know much about electrical engineering so I'm not sure if I'm correct. Assuming I am, what other options do I have? I just need to move the data from one drive to the other.

Answer 1

Powered (own source via power adapter) SATA/USB adapters readily available, so the adapter/drive combination is not dependent on the USB 2.0 connection for power. Recently looked into these on Amazon, for example.

Answer 2

You can try a USB adapter, but if you think that the power won't be enough you can get a Y-USB cable instead to complete the cloning process.

This cable is using one port for a data/power connection and one port solely for power with a bus powered USB drive. Many laptop USB ports are not "powered", they may provide insufficient voltage for the USB bus powered drive. This allows you to draw power from two ports and generally this will be enough for both.

Once the process is complete simply replace the drives and you should be ready to go. :)

Answer 3

Just buy "USB2.0 or 3.0" SATA 2.5 External case for hard disk. It works fine. I've also clonned my old hard disk using it. I attached my new hard disk with external case. I plugged in via USB and installed the tool for cloning. I use "EaseUs" tool for this. All 2.5 SATA hard disks operates at 5V so it will work fine.