USB Relay

The paid Pro version of HDDSuperClone is capable of directly controlling a relay board for power cycling a hard drive when it becomes unresponsive. This section contains information about what relay board to get, where to get it, what cables to get, and how to connect it.

Please note that the free version of HDDSuperClone cannot directly control these relays, direct control is only available in the paid Pro version. To control these relays with the free version, you would need an existing program from the vendor, or to write your own program to control the relay, and call that program from HDDSuperClone free.

HDDSuperClone Pro is capable of directly controlling the following Generic USB HID red relay boards. To find these relays, search on ebay for "USB Relay Programmable Computer Control For Smart Home". You may also be able to find them on Amazon. More information about these relay boards can be found at the following links:

http://vusb.wikidot.com/project:driver-less-usb-relays-hid-interface

https://github.com/pavel-a/usb-relay-hid

Note that the 2 relay board is powered by USB. The 4 relay board requires a 12v supply for operation.

These relay boards have a USB B female connector. A USB 2.0 A-Male to B-Male cable is required to connect it to the computer. If you have an old USB printer cable around, that should work. If not, the cables are easy to find online.

HDDSuperClone Pro is now also capable of directly controlling the YEPKIT YKUSH series of switchable USB hubs. This is an option as opposed to having to modify a USB extension cable to use with the generic relay. More info about the YEPKIT boards can be found at the following link:

https://www.yepkit.com

Note that YEPKIT does have software that works in Linux, and you could potentially use that command line software, and use the call command feature in the free version of HDDSuperClone, but that would be up to you to figure out. I had some issues with the software not working in certain conditions, so I implemented it directly in the Pro version to avoid those issues.

The following YEPKIT boards are supported. Only the YKUSH 3 has actually been tested (and is the recommended board), but the other boards should also work.