I'm considering purchasing a write blocker for forensics work and there are quite a few options on the market. Given that each of them comes with a fairly hefty price tag it is tempting to go down the route of buying a USB blocker and some cheap USB drive enclosures.

The question is does usong a USB blocker limit what can be foresically gathered from an IDE/SATA/SCSI disk?

Jimbob

While I primarily use a Solo 3 unit for imaging since I pull 2 images at a time... check WiebeTech for their DriveDock line... for $50 bucks, you can't go wrong...

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/USB_DriveDock.php

You assume correctly.  However they do have writeblockers which are significantly less expensive than some of the others.  If you go to the WiebeTech homepage and click on the Forensics option in the side menu, you will access their Forensic docks.  Read the features carefully as they vary in terms of which ports are writeblocked and which aren't.  I haven't used any of these, but am keeping them in mind for future purchases.

And I would say that yes, technically you could use a non-write blocked adapter with a software writeblock, but I have always been taught to use a hardware blocker if at all possible.  It seems to me that there are more potential accidents with a software-based writeblocker (such as software crash, or computer reboot resulting in some drive modification prior to the writeblock software starting back up, etc.)