I'm pretty sure that it's up to the Ext housing because I have tested a USB to SATA adapter and in which everything went smoothly (connected via USB to the laptop (Win XP) and data on it, then on the desktop computer ( Win 7) angschlossen by Sata and the data were there.
I can only advise of the Ext-housing, even if you want to run it only via USB
because if you times must operate the hard drive by Sata (Ac adapter broken etc) it may be that, as in my case, the data is gone.