Hdd docking station for old and new hard drives, and NAS?

[liberalartsnerd]

Hello,

I have a mixture of old desk top and laptop PCs going back to 1998,
many of which are beyond salvaging, and three of which, including a 1998 off brand desktop PC,
a 2000 Dell laptop, and a 2001 Dell desktop, no longer function.

I would like to get the data off the hard drives of these old computers.

I would like to get a hard drive docking station, or other external solution, for
migrating data, particularly pictures, from the hard drives of these old computers
to my newer computers, and a Network Attached Storage device, which I also
need to purchase.

It seems that when I look at retailer web sites, their hard drive docking stations
tend to all be oriented toward recent designs, like SATA, but few mention an ability
to accommodate older hard drive designs and formats.

In fact, if anyone knows of a NAS device that can dock old hard drives, that
would be ideal, but any recommendations for a relatively high capacity (1-2 TB)
NAS would be welcome as well.

My first priority is ease of use, as I am not all that knowledgeable about computers.

Thanks much,

Charlie

 

[sminlal]

How about this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817735001

Or this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Startech-USB-to-SATA-IDE-Hard-Drive-Docking-Station-for-2.5-or-3.5-HDD/14291559

(It's amazing what you can find by Googling "ide docking station")

 

[liberalartsnerd]

Cool. So 2.5" and 3.5" and IDE and SATA will take care of all laptop and desktop hard drives since 1997, and allow me siphon the data off them via USB? That would be great. Thanks!

Now I just need to find a good easy to install and use 2 TB NAS for my network.

 

[sminlal]

I suspect the laptop IDE drives may not fit in these docks, you may need a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter for them, such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812203012