2TB+ 2.5" Hard Drives?

[nForce2]

Anyone using one of the 2TB+ 2.5" hard drives?

The only bare drive I can find for sale at the moment is the "WD Green WD20NPVX 2TB 8MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive" on Newegg... It gets good reviews, but it's $180... and 15mm in height.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822236551

Newegg used to have the "Western Digital Green WD20NPVT 2TB IntelliPower 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive", but it is out of stock, and also a 15mm height drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822236348

Seagate/Samsung apparently has a 9mm 2TB drive in the works:
http://www.seagate.com/www-content/...nt-m-series/en-us/samsung-m9t-internal-ds.pdf
... and supposedly it started shipping in early December:
http://storageservers.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/samsung-ships-worlds-thinnest-2tb-storage-hard-drive/
... but I haven't been able to find one for sale anywhere?

Beyond that, there seem to be quite a number of 2.5" 2TB drives as external USB drives. The cheapest is the "TOSHIBA Canvio Basics 3.0 2TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive HDTB120XK3CA", at $110, so it is tempting to just buy the external drive and remove it from the enclosure rather than buying a bare drive. ($70 savings! :awe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149437

 

[greenhawk]

The cheapest is the "TOSHIBA Canvio Basics 3.0 2TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive HDTB120XK3CA", at $110, so it is tempting to just buy the external drive and remove it from the enclosure rather than buying a bare drive. ($70 savings! :awe

Except for the detail that a lot of recently released external drives have the usb controller integrated onto the PCB board and no sata connectors, so no way to connect it internally via sata.

IIRC it started about the 500GB point and generally all largers ones are this way. Only exception might be rebadged external drives (ie: from companies that do not make drives), but a bit of research is needed either way first.

 

[nForce2]

Except for the detail that a lot of recently released external drives have the usb controller integrated onto the PCB board and no sata connectors, so no way to connect it internally via sata.

IIRC it started about the 500GB point and generally all largers ones are this way. Only exception might be rebadged external drives (ie: from companies that do not make drives), but a bit of research is needed either way first.

Ooo, good to know, I hadn't heard that. :\

I don't suppose there is any way to know, without someone opening one up, is there?

 

[86waterpumper]

Some claim that external drives are internal drives that are culled because they don't pass as rigorous a inspection. I don't know if that is true or not, but if it is then the price savings might not be worth it.

That is pretty cool that seagate is finally coming out with a 9mm 2.0 tb drive.

 

[razel]

I've been watching that USB PCB only trend. Unfortunately the ONLY guarantee that you'll get SATA with a 2.5" are drives that follow the USM interface which is the Seagate Backup Plus or Seagate GoFlex. Some good news though... so far all 2.5" Seagate portable 2.5" drives are still SATA. I have 3 Seagate expansion portables two from 2012, one from 2013. They are all SATA and are all Samsung Advanced Format drives.

I hope Seagate keep doing this and USM catches on.

 

[holden j caufield]

good to know. I'm looking for a 2tb that will fit in my laptop. I think most laptop compartments are 12.7mm so 15mm looks to be too big for a laptop?

 

[Morbus]

Also, external hard drives have worse quality control. That's why they are cheaper, for the most part. Remember that.

 

[nForce2]

Unfortunately the ONLY guarantee that you'll get SATA with a 2.5" are drives that follow the USM interface which is the Seagate Backup Plus or Seagate GoFlex.

I hadn't heard of this before... but it looks like a neat (and smart) concept!

The largest capacity I can find (in either series) is the Backup Plus 1.5TB... Maybe the 2TB version is coming soon?

 

[nForce2]

That is pretty cool that seagate is finally coming out with a 9mm 2.0 tb drive.

Some good news though... so far all 2.5" Seagate portable 2.5" drives are still SATA.

Following up on this, the Seagate STDR200010x ("Backup Plus 2TB USB 3.0 Portable") has external measurements of 4.47"(L) x 2.99"(W) x 0.48"(D).

0.48" is 12.192 mm, so this must have a <12mm height drive inside. Think this might be the 9.5mm 'M9T' drive?

 

[razel]

Yes the USM interface on the Seagate portables is standard SATA+power, just more recessed. By the way, maybe because of CES it looks like they updated their site. I now see a 4TB portable!

As for the new Backup Plus Slim. It looks like the 500GB is smaller in height than the 1TB and 2TB. The 1TB and 2TB are the same height. 1TB in the previous two years were 9mm. Chances are good that the 2TB is also 9mm. I can't guarantee it.

The BAD news. These new Backup Plus Slims don't appear to be like the Backup Plus with the USM. I see no place to remove the adapter! No wonder the USM versions are on sale at Best Buy and Staples for $65-$70 for 1TB. They maybe discontinued. This doesn't mean that inside they have gone USB only though. I hope not.

 

[nForce2]

By the way, maybe because of CES it looks like they updated their site. I now see a 4TB portable!

Whoa! Yep, that's new!

STDA4000100 is the model, a 4TB 2.5" portable USB 3.0 drive in a new category called "Backup Plus Fast".

Data sheet:
http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../en-us/amer/docs/fast-hdd-ds1804-1-1311us.pdf

The height is listed as 22.35 mm, so the internal drive must be 15mm+.

 

[bryanl]

Some claim that external drives are internal drives that are culled because they don't pass as rigorous a inspection. I don't know if that is true or not, but if it is then the price savings might not be worth it.

That could explain the WD 7200 RPM Blacks found inside some USB 2.0 externals, but that likely happened because WD had excess production of those internals. I have seen externals containing drives with half the usual cache size, and I believe after Seagate quit selling 7200.11 as internals, they were still putting them in external enclosures.

 

[razel]

As profiled on the pcper CES #2 podcast. The 4TB Seagate portable is two 2TB 2.5" drives in a RAID. That's the 1st portable RAID I seen and if it's portable then power is all through USB, I assume.

 

[nForce2]

As profiled on the pcper CES #2 podcast. The 4TB Seagate portable is two 2TB 2.5" drives in a RAID. That's the 1st portable RAID I seen and if it's portable then power is all through USB, I assume.

Great info. I found the podcast you referenced:
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/CES-2014-Podcast-Day-2-ASUS-Lucid-Valve-Seagate-and-more
(The info on this Seagate 4TB drive starts at about the 3:45 mark.)

So if this enclosure is 22.35mm tall, and includes TWO hard drives, they must be the 9.5mm drive. Might be a good way to buy two unobtainable drives at the same time?

The spec sheet doesn't list a power adapter as being included, but it does say that a "USB 3.0 Split Cable" is included. So this might technically be "powered through USB", but it looks like it will take two USB 3.0 ports to do it. :\

 

[nForce2]

Haha. While searching, I found a 21-page thread on notebookreview.com that is almost exactly the same subject, but posted a full year prior. The first post is talking about one of the 2TB WD drives, and insightfully, on page 2, user 'superparamagnetic' predicted that data densities would plateau for the next year. :\

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...es/701142-2-5-9-5mm-hard-drives-over-1tb.html

 

[nForce2]

Pricing is out for the 4TB: $299.99

http://www.tbreak.ae/news/seagate-unveils-worlds-first-portable-4tb-storage-device

 

[nForce2]

Here's a new YouTube video of a Seagate rep talking about the new drives...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwQWiM1ocPY

The description under the video says that the 4TB will be available in February.

 

[nForce2]

Well, that was a fun experiment. :\

Since the 2TB+ are so expensive and so difficult to find, I picked up a 1.5TB Seagate Backup Plus. After two days of use, it started locking up after a few minutes of sustained use. The SMART data says it only lasted 11 hours. :thumbsdown:

This one will get returned, not sure if I'll just return or if I'll exchange. I bought three of them, so I'm testing #2 now.... But as it is, I wouldn't recommend this drive.

 

[razel]

I got my Seagate Backup Plus 2TB portable a few weeks ago. Tore it apart. Inside is a standard Samsung branded 2.5" 9mm 5400 drive with no trickery. NCQ works and performance is fast.

Also StorageReview just took apart the 4TB version and yes. It is two 9mm 5400 drives attached to a RAID USB adapter and the adapter is tiny!

Too bad the RAID is not adjustable. I'd love to have it clone automatically. Then I wouldn't have to rotate backups.