Bi-directional adapter converts IDE to SATA or SATA to IDE. The PATA2SATA3 is a bi-directional SATA IDE adapter/converter that lets you connect a Serial ATA drive to a legacy IDE port, or an IDE drive to a SATA motherboard port.A cost-effective solution for upgrading existing IDE systems to support SATA hard drives or optical drives, the SATA/IDE adapter eliminates the expense of having to purchase a controller card while saving the expansion slot that would be required for card installation.In addition to SATA hard drive installation, the adapter can be reversed in order to connect older IDE drives to a newer SATA-enabled motherboard, making it easy to retrieve old files from a previous system.