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ordskiweicz
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Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:08 pm

Thanks for comments on 8TB HDDs

Its clear that external drives by WD are about $70US cheaper than bare drives (why - maybe capitalism?)

Any problem just busting the drive free? I don't need an external.
 
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:30 pm

The main drawback is voiding the warranty. Another potential drawback is that some externals don't have a standard SATA drive inside (the drive is USB native). I think the second issue is more common with (or perhaps exclusive to) 2.5" form factor, but don't quote me on that.

It may also be more difficult to determine whether you're getting a SMR drive, since a given model of external drive may not always use the same model of bare drive inside.
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Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:51 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Another potential drawback is that some externals don't have a standard SATA drive inside (the drive is USB native).


Personal experience with such a drive? Is it possible to use such a drive outside its enclosure?
 
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:54 pm

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Another potential drawback is that some externals don't have a standard SATA drive inside (the drive is USB native).

Personal experience with such a drive? Is it possible to use such a drive outside its enclosure?

I have not personally encountered one, just read about them online. I imagine you could use it as an internal drive, but you would need an adapter cable to go from a motherboard USB header to whatever style of USB jack is on the drive.

For bare USB 3.5" drives (if such a thing exists), you'll also need to figure out a way to hook up the drive's power brick. Snake the cable in through an open PCI slot opening, perhaps?

Seems like a kludgy solution.
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Redocbew
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Wed Feb 05, 2020 5:22 pm

If I bought a drive with intention to shuck it, and found it used USB internally, then I'd take that as evidence I bought the wrong drive. Years ago I'd dive right into trying to hack something together just to do it, but I guess the older I get the more I'm losing my taste for mad science.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Wed Feb 05, 2020 6:04 pm

The other “gotcha” to watch for when shucking drives is that some of them will fail to operate if they detect voltage from your motherboard on a certain pin. You may have to put a small piece of kapton tape over the pin on the hard-drive’s connector to fool it into working with a consumer motherboard.
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:59 am

JustAnEngineer wrote:
The other “gotcha” to watch for when shucking drives is that some of them will fail to operate if they detect voltage from your motherboard on a certain pin. You may have to put a small piece of kapton tape over the pin on the hard-drive’s connector to fool it into working with a consumer motherboard.

Ahh, yeah. Forgot about that. In lieu of the kapton tape, if you have an old-school 4-pin Molex connector available on your PSU a Molex-to-SATA adapter cable should also be a viable workaround, since 4-pin Molex connectors have no 3.3V rail (so the corresponding pins on the adapter will be unconnected).
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Waco
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:31 pm

Every drive in my NAS was shucked. Don't buy Seagate external drives since they typically use SMR disks. WD 3.5" drives are safe, but the 2.5" drives sometimes are USB native.
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Thu Feb 06, 2020 10:28 pm

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Another potential drawback is that some externals don't have a standard SATA drive inside (the drive is USB native).


Personal experience with such a drive? Is it possible to use such a drive outside its enclosure?

Yes, some manufacturers have been doing this for a long time, especially on the 2.5-inchers. My own experience, at least a three years ago IIRC, was with a failed portable drive that I thought to turn into a portable SSD by using the case and the USB-SATA converter card with a spare SATA SSD I had lying around. Popped open the chassis and there was no internal USB-SATA converter card. The logic was fully integrated into the drive's control board.

IOW you need to do a bit of research on the drive you hope to use. Some are shuckable, some are not.
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Re: Why not rip the hdd from a much cheaper external drive?

Fri Feb 07, 2020 8:51 am

Waco wrote:
Don't buy Seagate external drives since they typically use SMR disks.

As noted previously (in the other related thread), their "Barracuda Compute" branded internal drives can be SMR as well. I've been burned by this. Don't be tempted by the fact that they are typically a bit cheaper than the equivalent capacity WD or Toshiba drives - there's a reason for the price differential!
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