With USB technology really making advances these days, one might wonder what the fuss is all about. The truth is that if you look at the back of your CPU, you will find far more USB ports than you will find serial ports, and if one could find a way to use these ports, one will be able to connect several devices to their computer.
Take for example the USB serial adapter, which is based on the principle that not many serial ports are available on your computer as much as USB ports, and very simply this device converts a USB port into a serial port so that you can connect devices that require the latter.
The USB IDE adapter is just right for those who require more hard disk space than what they have installed internally on their computer which uses IDE technology to accomplish the task of storage. So in this case, external hard disks do come in handy. All this device does is prepare the USB port for IDE transfer, and one can use an external hard disk to store more files.
Now along the same lines, the USB IDE converter is a cable that connects to a USB port at one end, and an IDE external storage device at the other end, and once the connections have been made, you have extra storage at your disposal.
So, as you can see, these USB devices can be really handy when it comes to storage and getting serial ports as well.