Hiya, so am looking to buy more storage and while browsing am seeing some external harddisks, such as Western Digital My Book and Seagate Expansion Desktop for cheaper than the internal harddisks themselves. Have seen this one video from KTZ Systems where he bought up multiple of these external ones just to open them up and use the disks for his own server. Was therefore wondering if you peeps have ever done this and if there any downsides to it at all?

  • lnxtx@feddit.nlEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    Be aware. Some external USB drives, like WD Elements, have built-in USB controllers. So they don’t have a SATA connector.

    • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      This must’ve changed as I’ve shucked WD Elements / Book drives and they were normal drives…

      So, you’re saying the actual harddrive has a USB chipset onboard and only a USB interface?

      When did this start happening?

      • norbert@kbin.social
        1·
        5 months ago

        I’ve shucked probably 100s of those WD essentials and they just had a little SATA -> USB adapter on it. It’s been a few years but it doesn’t seem like they’d make a whole new PCB just to include USB.

        • Dhs92@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          5 months ago

          Within the past 2-3 years drive manufacturers have been swapping to USB PCBs directly attached to the drive controller, instead of using a SATA -> USB interface.