Have you ever bough an external hardrive only to take the disk out of it?

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?

MstrDialUp ,

Yup. And if you want to look up more info on how to do it correctly, look up hard drive shucking.

Sunny OP ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Thanks!

Mountain_Mike_420 ,

Yes I’ve done it. What sucks is you make a lot of trash this way. Also double and triple check that the drives you buy will have standard sata connectors on them.

bjoern_tantau ,
@bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

I like the trash to hook up any hard drive via USB.

JustARegularNerd ,

Yeah one of these is literally my primary USB 3.0 to SATA adapter

lnxtx , (edited )
@lnxtx@feddit.nl avatar

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

Sunny OP ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Good to know! thanks

Cyber ,

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?

icy_mal ,

I think this depends on whether it's a 3.5 or 2.5 inch drive inside. To my knowledge, all external drives with a 3.5 inch drive inside are shuckable and have a standard SATA interface. With the compact drives that have a 2.5 inch drive inside, many will have a native usb interface and no SATA connector.

It makes sense as 3.5" sata drives are used for many many applications so why make something new just for external drives? With 2.5, however there are very few devices that use spinning sata drives in this form factor. It makes a lot more sense to build the USB interface directly on the drive since their main and possibly only application is external drives.

I could be wrong, but this has been my experience.

Moonrise2473 ,

Yes and i got "scammed" - western digital in order to save $3 included the USB port directly on the drive motherboard instead of the usual sata+usb like anyone else was doing

ArbiterXero ,

Amazing, I didn’t know they did this

BeatTakeshi ,
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

Same happened to me on a WD black

MonkderDritte ,

Just why don't they omit the casing inside the case too?

entropicdrift ,
@entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

IMO, if you want the beast deals right now on a 12+ TB HDD, you should use serverpartdeals.com instead. I've got 2 manufacturer recertified 14 TB enterprise-grade drives from them and it was way cheaper than buying any 14 TB external drive.

Sunny OP ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Im based in scandinavia so wont be able to buy from there, but thanks anyway!

rmuk ,

Hey. Heyhey. Heyheyhey. Have you ever noticed that your warships have giant barcodes on them? It's so that when they return to port they can scan the navy in.

qaz ,

There are also refurbished drives available on Amazon

slazer2au ,

Yes. Be aware there will be some pin blocking you need to do to make it work right because vendors know this trick.

Sunny OP ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Yeah typical :P

stevestevesteve ,

I have done this with dozens of drives and have never had to do any pin blocking. You only need to do that if you're using an absolutely ancient sata power cable that doesn't know about the spinup pin change

SpikesOtherDog ,

I have opened other enclosures and found a custom board on the hard disk.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

I thought you were talking about the platter

TheHolm ,
@TheHolm@aussie.zone avatar

Why create yourself a headache and still get substandard and no-warranty drive. If you want cheaper drives go for reconditioned/refurbished/used drives. Same risks, better product. Old enterprise SAS drives are cheap and many still have plenty of heath in them.

qaz ,

Do keep in mind that you need a SAS controller for that, which can cost between $50-200

Auli , (edited )

NOOO who would ever do that.

Sunny OP ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

a lot of people it seems :>

infinitevalence ,
@infinitevalence@discuss.online avatar

many times, shucking is a very valid way to get large format disks for cheaper than retail NAS parts. But be aware of what your buying and make sure that the disk your getting if its a white label is a reliable disk. WD Easystore/Mybook are generally good, as are the larger format Seagate external.

lazylion_ca ,

This is what I did when I had to refurb a laptop. Swap the drives, reinstall the OS, snd hand it all to the user. All your files are on this usb drive.

Thats when you find out who understands folder structure and who doesn't.

Phoonzang ,

I guess it shows how out of touch (old) I am that it's completely bewildering to me that there could be people who do not understand folders ... on a computer. Phones, tablets, yeah, I get that, those actively make it harder and harder to access the folder structure. But computers?

SeaJ ,

Not specifically, no. When I did change to building my own NAS, I cracked open my older 4TB backup drive to use as a spare.

Cobrachicken ,

Yup, with 2,5" Seagates. Reused the enclosure with smaller used enterprise ssds to make cheap USB sticks.

hperrin ,

I haven’t bought them specifically for that, but I have harvested drives from them. A lot of times, you’ll have to destroy the enclosure to get to the drive. If you’re ok with that, go for it.

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