Most serious computer enthusiasts have a wide range of HDDs, SSDs, and optical drives that are too old to really be used in a new machine and still work and it’s a shame to just trash them. So they collect dust. If only there was a way to easily be able to use it if needed. Well, now there is.

NewerTech has a new adapter that will help. As long as you have a USB 3.0 port on your computer. The adapter is called the USB 3.0 Universal Drive Adapter. It takes any SATA HDD or SSD and allows it to be used on the PC via the USB 3.0 port. The adapter also has IDE ribbon connectors.

I have a computer upstairs in my house that is in my son’s room. He likes to get online, read about Pokémon, and play games. The problem is that the normal USB adapter for the wireless network lacks the signal strength for a consistent connection.

MvixUSA has announced a new WiFi adapter called the Solido MS-811x Wireless-N USB adapter with 5dbi antenna. That big antenna is adjustable for the best signal strength and the device connects to your PC with a USB port.

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a truly useful display adapter. Sewell’s latest will come in handy if you need to forcefully push high-def signals through USB. The Minideck USB-to-DVI / VGA / HDMI (video only) adapter uses the DisplayLink DL-195 chip, which gives you support for resolutions as high as 2,048 x 1,152, so 1080p and 1,920 x 1,200 LCD monitors are taken care of.

Pretty cool. And it doesn’t matter if your PC is new or old. Since it doesn’t require a newer Core i7 rig to operate, so your old laptop should be able to handle powering a 24-inch LCD via a standard USB socket.

IOGEAR has been on a tear of late with new connectivity products for your computer living experience. One of the latest is the Wireless USB to VGA Kit, priced around $230.

The IOGEAR Wireless USB to VGA Kit, according to IOGEAR, enables HD video streaming between a PC and TV or projector up to 720p in a home or office. It works from up to 30 feet away on a HDTV and lets one make use of the TV’s picture-in-picture feature to watch a show and look at a computer display at the same time.

Gefen is now making available a USB to DVI connector for those who want to add additional digital video displays or projectors. It is called the Gefen USB to DVI Graphics Adapter and it will cost you around $130.

The Gefen USB to DVI Graphics Adapter is designed to do as the name implies – bringing additional display options to your computer through a USB connection. It works with the Windows operating system and sports a DVI port to which you hook up a monitor. On the other end is a USB port for a computer connection. Output video to these monitors comes in the DVI-I format.

Have you ever just wanted to leave all of your plugs and plug adapters at home when you travel abroad? Kensington is selling a rather useful Travel Plug Adapter which could help you fulfill that desire for around $20.

The Kensington Travel Plug Adapter is an all-in one design which has adapters for over 150 countries. These plugs slide out of the body of the power adapter and are easily plugged into a foreign wall socket. The device claims to be quite capable of powering laptop, cell phone, battery charger, or similar electronic device.

Sewell Direct is debuting its own USB to DVI adapter for those needing to hook up multiple displays to one computer. It is called the USB to DVI External Video Card and pricing is set at around $150.

The Sewell USB to DVI External Video Card makes use of DisplayLink virtual graphics technology to let you connect up to six displays to one PC (each one needs its own adapter). This particular adapter works with Windows machines only at the moment and sports a USB port on one end and DVI input on the other.

StarTech.com prides itself in being a manufacturer of “hard to find connectivity and technology parts.” It thinks one of its latest offerings – USB adapters which let you add additional displays to a computer – may fit into this niche. These products are the USB2VGA2 USB 2.0 to VGA Display Adapter and the USB2DVI USB 2.0 to DVI Display Adapter, priced at around $117 and $180 respectively.

The StarTech.com USB2VGA2 USB 2.0 to VGA Display Adapter and the USB2DVI USB 2.0 to DVI Display Adapter both connect to a single USB 2.0 port on a computer, offering support for up to five separate monitors (requires one adapter per display). The USB2VGA2 works with VGA display resolutions of up to 1600 x 1200 (32-bit), and up to 1920×1600 at 16-bit color quality, while the other one does DVI display resolutions up to 1600×1200 (standard) (@32 bits) and 1680×1050 (wide) (@ 32 bits).

We’ve seen some pretty handy adapters to connect your internal drives, externally to your computer with things like the Stage Rack and this USB to SATA adapter but none of them match the convenience of the USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter from NewerTech. This adapter not only connects SATA drives to your computer’s USB port, but it will handle ATA/IDE drives as well.

Anytime I upgrade computers or just upgrade my drive I always keep the old one because inevitably a day will come where I want something off of it that I thought I would never need again. Opening up the computer case is a real pain and adapters like this are well worth the money in the time it saves alone. The adapter works with all 2.5″ laptop drives, 3.5″ desktop drives and will connect any existing 5.25″ drives such as CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs or removable Iomega Zip drives.

Linsys has a new wireless gaming adapter they are showing off at the annual CES conference this week in Las Vegas, boasting it as the first dual-band wireless-N gaming adapter on the market. The WGA600N rids the need for stringing CAT-5 cable from your router across the house and into the room with your game console(s) by providing a fast wireless adapter to connect them.

The new gaming router from Linksys will connect to the ethernet port of your Xbox, Playstation or Gamecube and bring online gaming or head-to-head matches with other games to your console without having to string the wires. The adapter can then connect to older 802.11a/b/g networks if needed or gets higher bandwidth when its available through a wireless-N network. According to Linksys the setup is pretty simple too, with no drivers needed. Just plug the adapter into the Ethernet port of your console and it will find the network and connect up.

How many times have you cursed HDTV manufacturers while trying to install HDMI cables into those hard to reach HDMI ports on the back? Cables to Go thinks it may have an answer to this home theater issue by unveiling a line of rotating HDMI and DVI adapters. These adapters all price at around $13.

The Cables to Go HDMI and DVI 360-Degree Rotating Connectors are designed to enable 360 degree rotation and 90 degree bending so one can more easily connect HDMI and DVI cables to sources. Each one sports a center ball joint design and appropriate connectivity ports in its body shape.

Because of all the attention gained by the HDD Stage Rack which gives users a convenient “dock” for their hard drives, Logitec has answered with a version of their own. The eSata HDD Cradle from Logitec seems to work very similarly to the Stage Rack supporting 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives, but no IDE. This model also looks a little bit more stylish and additionally houses a 4-port USB hub through it’s existing USB connection, making it a little more useful.

GeekStuff4U has the Logitec hard drive cradle available for pre-order now priced at $72.31 and will start shipping at the end of December, but unfortunately without support for IDE it doesn’t look like it adds much more value for it’s significantly higher price.

Here’s another convenient solution for hooking up your bare external hard drives to your computer without having to buy and enclosure or open up your case. It’s not quite as slick as the Stage Rack we saw a week ago but it takes up less room and costs a little less, too.

The small adapter is called the USB to eSATA adapter from Brando and will connect your SATA or eSATA drive to your computer through the little USB 2.0 compliant adapter giving up to the max 480Mbps transfer rates. The adapter runs $15 by itself and $25 with the appropriate power supply for your country and makes the drive plug & play giving you instant access to its contents, and of course a warm whirling bare drive sitting on your desk.

Take a look at this. The picture pretty much says it all but I’ll explain some anyway. This is the SATA HDD Stage Rack which is compatible with PC and Mac and connects through USB 2.0 to your computer. By simply plugging in your hard drive like it was some old-school Atari game the drive shows up on your computer. It supports 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives and does require an external power connection to spin the drive in addition to the USB cable.

I have a drawer full of hard drives from different upgrades where occasionally I need to access. Opening your PC is a real pain and putting it in an enclosure isn’t a whole lot better. Up until now I, like a lot of people, have been using a SATA to USB adapter cable which works pretty slick but doesn’t hold a candle to how cool this hard drive dock looks.

Even though the size of hard drives are continually increasing so does the media that you store on them, requiring you keep buying more drives and bigger capacities to store all of your awesome-quality high-def content. A real pain however is having to go through the process of powering down your computer, opening up the case and connecting one of these new hard drives just so you can format it or transfer some data to it. Also, I’ve found that sometimes there just isn’t another SATA or IDE connection available once I get the case cracked open.

The folks at Tripp Lite have made this a whole lot easier with this set of cables designed to let you connect your SATA or IDE drive external through a simple USB 2.0 adapter. The U238-000 USB 2.0 SATA/IDE Combo Adapter allows for individual or simultaneous connection to a drive to configure it or transfer data without having to install it, turning any internal hard drive into an external USB storage device.