Can anyone recommend recent models of 2.5"-sized USB 3.0/USB Type C external drives with that still use a real 2.5" SATA HDD inside?
Recently, a friend had their WD MyPassport 2.5" external drive crash. I was shocked to see that the HDD had the USB connector soldered on board, rather than being a regular SATA drive connected to a USB adapter.
This has two major implications:
- The drive can't be directly attached to a motherboard. This is very important if your drive crashes: data recovery programs work much more reliably over a SATA connection, compared to a USB connection. This is because data recovery requires direct disk access. So, if you are unlucky and get a flimsy drive, you have better chances to recover your data.
- You can't upgrade the drive capacity later. This is not as critical as the first point, but still highly desirable. E.g. I still use a USB 2.0 LaCie upgraded to 1TB somewhere down the line. It's not a speed demon, but the aluminum case is very robust. It also regularly doubles as a SATA-USB adapter for 2.5" SATA drives.
So, I am looking for recommendations on external drives that:
- use a real SATA 2.5" HDD inside (mandatory!)
- have either a Micro Type B or Type C USB port on the the enclosure (mandatory!)
- feature USB 3.0 UASP or better
- are good looking
- are relatively easy to disassemble